Give us our Daily Ramen
by kizukatana
Summary: Naruto runs an underground newspaper called 'The Daily Ramen', focused on poking fun at the fragile egos of the rich and famous. How does Sasuke respond when he moves to town and gets in Naruto's crosshairs? Not particularly well. But who said arguing can't be foreplay? Sasuke x Naruto (Yaoi boy x boy)
1. Chapter 1 - Grocery store encounter

**Summary:**

Naruto runs an underground newspaper called 'The Daily Ramen', focused on poking fun at the fragile egos of the rich and famous. How does Sasuke respond when he moves to town and gets in Naruto's crosshairs? Not particularly well. Sasuke x Naruto (Yaoi boy x boy)

**Warning:** Sarcasm, taunting, some crack, OOC Hinata (maybe? who knows what that girl is really thinking). Just a little flirting in this chapter, but there will be smut eventually, so please note this **story is rated M. There will be full-on boy x boy sex, DON'T LIKE DON'T READ**. **17+**

**Author's note: **The first chapter of this fic is dedicated to **Kiddo20**, as she was the one who most encouraged me to write this from the other ideas I was kicking around. **BriEva**, ever my muse, helped me a lot with the structure of the chapter, and ideas around on what the columns should be about and who should write what. If you have never read _The Onion_ (my favorite source of news), then the things Naruto and his crew write will seem a bit... extreme. But I assure you, even in the super up-tight, politically correct culture of the US right now, this type of humor still exists. Thank god. And Naruto's character has absolutely NOTHING to do with one of the writers at the Onion that I had a small (enormous) crush on when I was a wee lass. Scout's honor. ;-)

And before you ask, I have NO IDEA if this will be NaruSasu or SasuNaru or SasuNaruSasu. If that is the only thing that matters to you in a story, then you shouldn't read this fic, since sex will not be the main point here (though it will BE IN HERE, so if you don't like Boy x Boy then you also shouldn't read this).

-xXx-

* * *

><p><strong>The Daily Ramen, September 20 <strong>

OUR DUMB WORLD_ - Tiresome things that are going on in other places that you couldn't care less about. Weekly column by **Nara Shikamaru**_

When a recent political poll in Japan revealed that voters are dissatisfied with the current tax rates in the light of excessive government spending, many politicians took note. Not one to ignore the needs of the public, our Prime Minister today took a courageous stand against 'unnecessary spending' by announcing a new policy that restricts the number of prostitutes public officials are allowed to expense each month to 'one go a week'. Senior level officials are still allowed unlimited 'servicing'. The House of Representatives and House of Councilors threatened to walk out if they were not declared 'senior level' under this new mandate. The classification is still pending. All progress on other issues ground to a halt until this matter is resolved.

* * *

><p>IN OTHER NEWS - <em>If you think you didn't care about Nara's stuff, you REALLY won't care about this crap. Local news. Weekly column by <strong>Uzumaki Naruto<strong>_

Local artist claims to have X-ray vision as he insists I have no penis. Rumor has it he is trying to get in my pants to verify. When confronted directly with this rumor, said artist just smiled creepily and asked me to please remove my trousers. Judging by the number of nude male paintings hanging in his gallery, I am guessing that this approach tends to be fairly successful for him. He then applied to be a political cartoonist for The Daily Ramen. We are still waiting to see if he can draw anything other than pantless men, but his sketch of the Prime Minister receiving head from the House of Representatives really was quite convincing.

* * *

><p>I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE -<em> Seriously, people. If you don't know what you're doing sexually, can you please just keep it in your own bedrooms? Weekly column by <strong>Hyuuga Hinata<strong>_

Last night I found myself occupied out back of one of Konoha's more popular night clubs. A short way down the alley from me was another couple engaging in sexual intercourse, where the man was taking the girl from behind. Now normally, I would give this at least a 7 because of the brazen nature of the act, and I mean... who doesn't like to get fucked with their clothes on pinned up against a dirty alley wall? But the problem was with the man's technique. He was taking her from behind, but penetrating her vaginally. With absolutely no clitoral stimulation, and no chance of hitting this poor girl's G-spot. And the girl was clearly one where clitoral stimulation was required. Her robotic moans clearly translated into "could you just hurry the hell up and finish already so I can go back to the club and find someone who actually knows what they're doing?" In the end, I had to give this couple a 3. Good idea, but poor execution.

* * *

><p>DUMBASS OF THE DAY - <em>Because some people are just so dumb, they really do deserve an award for it. Weekly award by <strong>Inuzuka Kiba<strong>_

In Tokyo this week, a successful attorney of one of the leading law firms was showing off his corner office on the top floor of his building to a bunch of interns from law school. Bragging about his view, he told them not to be afraid of the height because the windows were 'rock solid'. To prove his point, he hurled himself against the window... and plunged 32 stories to his death. And this dumb-ass had graduated top of his class from one of the leading law schools. WTF?

* * *

><p>BAD SHIT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU - <em>At least now you know. Weekly horoscope by <strong>Aburame Shino<strong>_

For all you 'year of the tiger' people, I hate to say it but you're going to be struck by a meteor. Why? Because you were born in the wrong year. The rest of us should be fine, but you Tiger folks should be sure that your wills are all in order. As usual, people born in the year of the rabbit are getting laid tonight. No news for the rest of you, sorry. Maybe next week.

* * *

><p>SPORTS NEWS! - <em>Sports are a celebration of endless youth! Join me in reveling in them! Weekly column by <strong>Rock Lee!<strong>_

Our youthful Konoha Dragons led themselves to victory in the seventh inning by hitting a grand slam! It was very invigorating! But I don't understand why they refuse to wear the new green spandex uniforms I suggested! They would look even more invigorating! [sorry I have been told yet again that we have run out of space for my column this week. But next week! I will surely be given more space next week! And will share with you my enthusiastic love of sportsmanship at that time!]

* * *

><p>Naruto pushed his cart through the narrow aisles of the local organic grocery store. He didn't shop here much because the prices were pretty high, but this weekend was his turn to host dinner for his friends and co-workers at <em>The Dailey Ramen, <em>the underground newspaper he had started with his best friend, Shikamaru. It had been six years since they had started writing tongue-in-cheek articles about local celebrities and current events in their dorm room freshman year. They had started out just printing copies for friends. Then leaving them some out on the coffee tables of the study area of their dorm. Word spread, and people asked for copies in other dorms and at campus restaurants. Then they were asked to post it online, which had been a relief because it was cheaper than printing it on paper which neither really had the extra money to keep doing. Eventually, circulation finally reached the point where local businesses were asking to buy space to advertise in their little underground paper, and people were willing to pay for copies and subscribe for e-mail alerts for 'important newsflashes'.

It didn't take Shikamaru long to figure out a business model, and now, six years later, they were making a pretty decent living basically just by being sarcastic and poking fun of people who needed it the most. It was the best fucking job ever. Naruto had never been able to keep from saying inappropriate things (just ask his friends and family). Now he was paid to do so. Much to his mother's dismay.

The paper was - in his humble opinion - a work of art. It balanced Naruto's over-the-top political incorrectness and general disdain of the rich and privileged with Shikamaru's dry, intellectual wit. As the paper had grown, they had hired a seemingly shy girl named Hinata who wrote a column that critiqued the various acts of PDA that she encountered around town. They also had brought on three of their college friends, Kiba, Lee, and Shino who had come up with ideas for their own columns. It wasn't any surprise that their friends had the same twisted sense of humor as Naruto and Shikamaru. Anyone with thinner skin pretty much would have been scared away. And while they'd never be rich, they were making enough that they all could live comfortably. And more importantly, have a shitload of fun going to 'work' every day.

It was brilliant.

Naruto still couldn't believe people were willing to pay for it, especially since - when growing up - Naruto had gotten the sense that people would pay for him to _not _talk. In fact, he could vividly remember his mother paying him ten bucks to keep his mouth closed a few times when his dad had to have people from work over for dinner. It had happened more than once.

But all that had changed now. The business just kept growing. People were asking them to make a compendium of their most successful stories to sell as a book. And then there was the merchandise. Just for fun, Hinata had made some T-shirts for a small charity fundraiser they had attended and they had sold out in less than five minutes. So they had added a section on their website called "Daily Ramen: Crap you can buy" where people could purchase mugs, T-shirts, and bags sporting the paper's motto:

"_Fuck off - I'm reading my Daily Ramen_".

Naruto was wearing his bright orange version of one of their T-Shirts as he shopped. Since the store was just across the street from his apartment building, he knew most of the people here, and as was his habit he stopped and joked with several.

"Chouji! What do you recommend for meat this week?"

The co-owner of the gourmet store looked up from behind the counter where he was arranging the packages of sushi and meat he had just finished preparing. "Wouldn't you like to know," he waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "I thought you were abstaining from sex these days."

Naruto rolled his eyes. He'd known Chouji since they were kids, and Naruto had never made a secret about his sexuality. Like everything else, he just joked about the fact that he couldn't make up his mind about what major to pick in college, so it shouldn't surprise people that he couldn't decide what gender he liked, either. Though he usually leaned pretty hard towards men.

But that had become irrelevant after his last break-up. It was the first time Naruto had actually been in love. Still probably was. But when the relationship had headed south, Naruto had called it quits. His ex had moved back Suna, and while it definitely helped that he didn't 'run into him' anymore, Naruto knew he wasn't ready to start anything along those lines yet. And if he were honest, there really hadn't been anyone he was even tempted by, male or female. It had been over a year, and his friends were starting to be concerned.

Naruto wasn't, though. He felt no pressing need to jump back into another relationship. The staff of "The Daily Ramen" was his family, and writing a weekly newspaper was a lot of work, even though it was fun. He laughed every day, and had great friends who knew and understood him. What more could he want? Not everyone needed to be in a relationship to be happy. And Naruto was happy. Much happier than when he'd been dating -

"Are you done?" a rather rude voice came from behind him.

"Excuse me?" Naruto asked, snapping himself out of his thoughts and turning to face the annoyed-looking stranger. Naruto's eyes widened fractionally at the sheer physical perfection of the man standing behind him. The guy had soft black hair, cut in a carefully haphazard style that framed his face and spiked out in back. _A little like a duck's ass, _Naruto thought automatically. But the man's face was... a work of art.

"I said _are you done?_ You're blocking the counter. Some of us have better things to do than listen to strangers discuss their sex lives."

Work of art or not, the guy was an ass. _Was the hair supposed to be foreshadowing of the guy's personality? 'Warning - I'm an ass. Even my hair thinks so.' _Naruto held back a snicker. The dark-eyed man was clearly aware of his own attractiveness... Naruto could feel the arrogance and sense of self-importance oozing off the stranger. Naruto narrowed his eyes and grinned. He loved guys like this. They were so much fun to make fun of.

"Oh, I'm _so sorry._ But you know, I think you are at the wrong counter," Naruto said, smirking at the man's annoyed expression.

"Wrong counter?"

"Yeah. The one that sells giant sticks to shove up your ass is at the other end of the store. Though I'm not sure they'd have your size. Not many can manage ones that large."

The man's eyes widened at the crudeness of the insult. Naruto could hear Chouji trying to hold back his laughter. Ignoring the now fuming man standing behind him, Naruto turned back to his friend.

"So, as I was saying before we were so _rudely_ interrupted, what do you recommend today?"

. . .

After picking out the meat that he was going to grill for his friends that evening (making sure to spend a bit extra time visiting with Chouji to further annoy the man waiting not-so-patiently behind him), Naruto picked up some plain yoghurt for the cucumber sauce he was going to make. He wondered if he still had enough cumin, so he grabbed some of that as well. With Kiba bringing the drinks and Hinata bringing dessert this week, all that was left for Naruto to get as host were some vegetables for salad. He would not be one of the people eating them, of course, but he would play the gracious host and cater to his friends more healthful tastes.

As Naruto entered the produce section, he was slightly annoyed to see the stranger there again. The man was running his long, strong-looking fingers almost sensually over the tomatoes, testing their smoothness and firmness before selecting surely more than a grown man could possibly eat in a week and placing them into his basket.

Naruto couldn't resist poking at the guy just a little bit more. There was just something about him that set Naruto's teeth on edge.

"You're lucky that those tomatoes can't file sexual harassment charges against you. The way you were feeling them up must mean you haven't gotten laid in a while. Somehow, with your personality, that doesn't surprise me. I heard there's an alley off Main St. where the call girls hang out. Maybe it's time to pay for some service instead of assaulting innocent produce."

Sasuke looked at the cucumber Naruto was currently holding in his hand. "I see you were able to pick up a date for the evening," he said, his voice mocking.

Naruto actually laughed, and rubbed his hand along the shaft of the vegetable suggestively before tossing it carelessly into his cart. "Nah. Actually I have an entire apartment full of people I am spending the evening with. Unlike a bastard like you, I'm able to actually make friends."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "I could have my apartment full of people if I wanted. I just prefer not to be surrounded by annoying idiots."

"I said _friends, _not _groupies_. I have no doubt that you could get groupies. Having _friends_ requires having an actual personality, not just a pretty face."

With that, Naruto grabbed a second cucumber and added it to his cart, then - grabbing a package of arugula - turned and walked over to the check-out counter.

Sasuke stood there for a moment, fuming. _Who the fuck does that guy think he is? _

It didn't escape him, though, that the guy had basically said he thought Sasuke was hot. Sasuke jerked his eyes up from where he was _absolutely not_ checking out the annoying blond's ass.

It was his turn to cook dinner tonight. He would be sure _not _to mention the embarrassing grocery store encounter to his brother. God knows that the last thing Itachi needed was more ammunition against him.

-xXx-

As usual, Hinata had shown up early to help Naruto clean and set up. She always teased him that - since he was basically gay - he was never going to have a wife to do it for him, so as one of his best and only female friends, it was her duty to help with his shortcomings. Namely, the hygiene of his home.

Naruto went out onto his balcony and started up the grill. Though the apartment was fairly cramped, the balcony was spacious, allowing a grill and enough chairs to seat his friends outside. It was the main reason he had chosen the apartment in the first place. Plus the fact that it was walking distance to their small office.

"So..." Hinata began casually. Naruto almost winced. He knew where she was going whenever she took that tone. "Meet anyone interesting recently?"

Naruto knew that his friends worried about the fact that he hadn't even tried dating in well over a year. He was a naturally affectionate and out-going person, and to them it just felt unhealthy that he had chosen to remain 'alone'. But in his mind, he wasn't alone. He had great friends. It was enough. "Well, I met this total asshole down at the grocery store today. If I see him again, I might try to find out his name so I can pay homage to his _awesome _personality in my column sometime."

Hinata rolled her eyes. "I don't mean did you find yet another person to try to knock down a peg. I meant someone you might be interested in actually dating."

"Hinata... you've already tried to set me up with every single friend you have, male or female. You've done your part. I'm just not interested right now. And besides, you're one to talk, missy. I don't see you in a committed relationship yet. When are you going to finally give Kiba a break and go out with him?"

Hinata blushed, but looked at Naruto slyly. "When he mans up and earns it. In the meantime, I'm having too much fun hanging out with you and the guys."

The doorbell rang, cutting off their conversation. "It's open!" Naruto shouted.

Kiba and Shino came in, loaded down with booze. "Seriously?" Naruto asked, eyeing the large volume of alcohol. "Are we celebrating something other than another successful edition of the paper this week?"

Kiba shrugged. "It's been a while since we all cut loose. Besides, Lee had some triathlon or something he was training for today, so we don't have to worry about him going insane and trashing your place. Plus, if we go to a club, you and Hinata will do your dirty dancing thing again, which I _don't _need to see. I figured we could hang out and heckle the local news and get smashed."

Naruto and Hinata looked at each other, then shrugged. Seemed like a good time to them, too. They could always do their dirty dancing routine another day.

"Fine, but I'm not going to drink much until _after_ I finish grilling."

Kiba laughed out loud at that. "Yeah. I remember the last time you tried drunk grilling. You caught your apron on fire, and couldn't figure out how to get it off. Luckily Hinata had kept her head and ripped it off before you got seriously burned."

Hinata smiled. "Lucky for Naruto I have experience ripping his clothes off."

Kiba looked uncertain, clearly not sure whether she was joking or not. Hinata smacked him on the back of the head. "Idiot. Naruto's basically gay, remember? It's been almost five years since he's dated a girl. And I'm _definitely _a girl."

Kiba tried and failed to keep his eyes from sliding down to her very well-endowed 'girlness' parts. But he snapped them up fast enough to see her raised eyebrow, amusement showing in her eyes. She seemed to be waiting for him to say something, but - as usual - he simply blushed and turned away, pretending to be busy arranging the alcohol. Hinata suppressed a sigh.

"But if I ever do go back to girls, Hina, I will totally date one like you. Pretty, funny, smart and perfect," Naruto said from the balcony, trying not to use too much lighter fluid and set the grill on fire. It had happened before.

Hinata blushed slightly at the compliment, wishing Kiba could be as direct. To her, Naruto was like the brother she never had. Unlike her asshole cousin, whom she _wished _she wasn't related to, Naruto supported her and looked out for her. Lots of people assumed they had dated, but they'd never liked each other that way. They'd clicked as friends, and that had been just that from the first time they'd met. She loved Naruto, and he loved her. But it wasn't sexual, and never would be. Sometimes she wished that they felt differently, but you couldn't help who you loved. Both she and Naruto had definitely fallen for the wrong people. She sent an annoyed glance at the man with the shaggy brown hair in front of her, and it took all her will-power to resist kicking him in the shin.

Shino opened a bottle of sake and poured four glasses. "You'd better hurry up and get grilling if you don't want to be the only sober person in the group," he said stoically.

"Nah. Shika will still be sober, too. He's always late."

"Not today," Shino said, his lips quirked up beneath the collar of his jacket. "Why? Because he'll be here on time this time."

Kiba laughed as he downed his drink. "Yeah, right. I could count on one hand the number of times Shika is _ever _on time with anything, including his own column. And he's the one who sets the damn deadlines!"

Just then, there was a lazy knock on the door. Not bothering to wait for a response after years of being welcome, Shikamaru walked in. "Hey," he said in general greeting to the group.

"Jesus, Shino. How do you do that shit?" Naruto asked. While mostly Shino's 'predictions' in the paper were just insane, he did have sort of an uncanny ability to predict minor, random miracles upon occasion. Like Shikamaru showing up on time.

Shino simply smiled, then went and lounged back on one of the sofas in Naruto's cramped (but now tidy, thanks to Hinata) living room. He flicked on the TV and turned it to the local news station. The staff of the Daily Ramen were active enough in the community that they generally didn't need to use 'second hand' news. But they often found inspiration - and sometimes just sadistic enjoyment - by making fun of the boring, conservative stuff that made some of the news channels.

"You guys see anything 'newsworthy' today?" Naruto asked. Of course, they all knew that by 'newsworthy' he meant 'good to make fun of'. It was their job, after all, and they took their humor seriously.

"I saw a really annoying couple wearing matching sweaters sharing an ice cream," Hinata shuddered. "It was like I was thrown back to the 1950's. You should have seen the vacuous expressions on their faces."

Kiba snickered. Most people thought that Hinata was a quiet, sweet girl, because she didn't talk much in front of strangers. But when she opened her mouth and let you know what was actually going on inside that head of hers... she was _freaking amazing._ Kiba had been in love with her since the moment she started finally talking around him. But - despite Naruto's constant prodding to the contrary - Kiba just felt intimidated by her. She was too perfect. Funny, pretty, interesting, sweet-but-not-boring. She also came from a seriously loaded family. They had basically disowned her, but he still felt unworthy.

So he settled on friendship. It was better than being shot down the way all the other guys who asked her out were. He didn't think he could handle that.

"I heard that some college kids trying to sneak into a rock concert without paying and climbed over a chain fence behind the stadium," Kiba said, trying to distract himself. "One of them fell and literally got a stick impaled up his ass. Had to go to the hospital to have it removed."

Naruto snickered. "I think I met that guy in the grocery store today. Looked like the surgery was not successful, because the stick was definitely still firmly lodged up his ass."

Everyone chuckled, except Shino, who looked at Naruto thoughtfully. "So you were looking at his ass?"

Naruto's mouth gaped open for a moment. And to everyone's amazement, he blushed. "N-No! The guy was a fucking asshole! And I was _not_ looking at his ass!"

"So who is this hot asshole?" Shikamaru asked, his eyes looking slightly sleepy. It didn't fool anyone in the room who knew him better. The guy's mind was razor sharp, however bored he might appear.

"He's _not_ hot. He's just an asshole. And I have no idea who he is. I did not want to get his name and number and hang out or anything," Naruto said defensively.

"Hm," Shikamaru said, glancing over at Shino speculatively. Naruto almost groaned.  
>His friends were so desperate to get Naruto dating again that they pounced on the smallest hints that he found someone interesting. Even when those hints were <em>completely incorrect<em>.

"ANYWAY," Naruto said in an unnecessarily loud voice. "Did anyone else hear something good we could use in next week's paper?"

Shikamaru shifted and spoke, "There's some big company that just moved its headquarters to Konoha. 'Uchiha Financial Holdings'. Supposedly run by two brothers who just took over from their father after he had a heart attack. Evidently it's a lot of high end jobs coming here. And a lot of money."

"Hmm," Naruto said noncommittally. There wasn't much funny about bringing jobs or taking over from a parent who had a heart attack.

"Most of the swirl has been around the fact that the brothers are fairly young and supposedly attractive. Or at least rich, which equals attractive in most people's eyes. All the local socialites are practically frothing at the mouth to try to get a date with them."

Now _that_ was something Naruto could work with. "Ok. Then let's give these brothers a real Konoha welcome in the next edition. I'll look around and see what I can find out about them. Do you know if their dad died? If he did, I might hold off. It's no fun to poke at people when they're already down."

"No. He didn't die. Just had to retire for health reasons, then turned the business over to his sons. They're young, hot, and rich. Poke away," Shikamaru said, already sounding bored.

They continued to chat back and forth about annoying people they'd seen, funny mistakes that famous people had made. Naruto managed to finish grilling the food without burning it, a testament to the number of times they'd eaten at his place.

Their attention drifted to the news, where there was a discussion about an Italian porn star running for parliament. And apparently winning. "Looks like I've found my lead for next week, too," Shikamaru said while Kiba lamented the fact that there were not hot porn stars in Japan's government, and clearly he was living in the wrong country.

-xXx-

**_to be continued..._**

What do you think? Next chapter will show what Sasuke and Itachi are up to. And someone will show them the latest issue of the Daily Ramen, where they will be featured courtesy of Naruto.

Interested in being a writer for 'The Daily Ramen'? Send me ideas for any of our writers to take on (within the themes of their columns). I will give credit for all ideas used! Gweatherwax gave the great suggestion for having Sai apply to be a political cartoonist for the paper, which I definitely will use! Annoying neighbors or co-workers? Nominate them for Kiba's dumbass of the day award (does not need to involved actually dying, just being a dumbass). Seen any really gross or overly sappy PDA recently? Tell Hinata about it and she will make fun of it appropriately.

This story will be updated regularly, but not weekly since I am also writing Deception right now. But the plot is finally mapped out, so it will be finished, like all my other fics. Just more slowly.

_Updated note:_ And just to clarify, when I talked about Naruto's crew making fun of the 'boring, conservative' stuff on mainstream news, I mean that they find mainstream news too politically correct. They have conservative language (you'd never hear a mainstream reporter say something was 'fucking retarded' for example). So they will make fun of both the left- and right- political figures, etc. They are 'party agnostic' in their humor.


	2. Chapter 2 - An unexpected headline

**Summary:**

Naruto runs an underground newspaper called 'The Daily Ramen', focused on poking fun at the fragile egos of the rich and famous. How does Sasuke respond when he moves to town and gets in Naruto's crosshairs? Not particularly well. Sasuke x Naruto (Yaoi boy x boy)

**Warning:** Sarcasm and taunting. Language.

**Author's note: **Thanks for your comments and suggestions! I was able to work some of them into this chapter (see credits at the bottom). This chapter is dedicated to everyone who has been having a bad week. I have PM'd with so many of you who are either sick, or annoyed at school/work, or having family issues. As I sit here with my head cold, finishing this chapter way ahead of schedule because I feel too tired to go to the dojo and work out, I hope you get a few laughs to make things a little better.

-xXx-

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><p><strong>The Daily Ramen, September 25 <strong>

OUR DUMB WORLD_ - Tiresome things that are going on in other places that you couldn't care less about. Weekly column by **Nara Shikamaru**_

Italy has finally found a way to engage voters in politics: elect porn stars into office. In a recent landslide election, the adult film star celebrated her victory by baring her breasts to her supporters. There was some concern whether this constituted bribing of the electorate in a literal "tit" for tat exchange, but no formal complaint has been lodged. Rumor has it that the rest of parliament, regardless of party, is looking forward to working _quite closely_ with their new colleague.

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><p>IN OTHER NEWS - <em>If you think you didn't care about Nara's stuff, you REALLY won't care about this. Weekly column by <strong>Uzumaki Naruto<strong>_

There has been tremendous interest in the arrival into Kohona of Uchiha Financial Holdings, an operation run by the sons of its founder, Uchiha Fugaku. We were unable to obtain an interview with either of these two highly-sought-after brothers to ask about their initial impression of our city, but we have heard from one source that while the Uchihas are happy overall with their new home in Konoha, Uchiha Itachi thinks the new Konoha government policy for randomly searching passengers on the high speed rail is "a little bit gay."

While many Konoha residents are pleased at the arrival of the Uchiha brothers on the elite social scene, an inside source says there is at least one malcontent. The Uchiha brothers' house cat is reportedly disgruntled because of the presence of so many other pussies in his residence most evenings, as socialites scramble to secure their financial futures by trying to gain marital alliance with the Uchiha empire. We have been unable to reach either brother for comment on this issue. They are most likely 'getting busy'.

* * *

><p>I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE -<em> Seriously, people. If you don't know what you're doing sexually, can you please just keep it in your own bedrooms? Weekly column by <strong>Hyuuga Hinata<strong>_

I like to watch. But that doesn't mean that you get to watch back. To the couple that lives down the hall from me, here is a message. If you are trying to invite me to join in by creepily staring at me while you make out with each other in my hallway, you are going about it the wrong way. Threesomes sometimes can start spontaneously, but not generally in the middle of a public space. Unless it is Mardi Gras, but that is an entirely different story. If you are just so bored with each other that you are constantly scanning your surroundings for a new partner, then please stop these lame PDA moments until you find someone who can actually capture your attention properly. No one gets off on boring or half-hearted PDA. You're wasting everyone's time. Just stop.

* * *

><p>DUMBASS OF THE DAY - <em>Because some people are just so dumb, they really do deserve an award for it. Weekly award by <strong>Inuzuka Kiba<strong>_

So I get that concert ticket prices have been going up. I really do. But how dumb do you have to be to try to climb over a razor wire fence while drunk off your ass and high? I guess that question sort of answers itself, but an unfortunate group of college students found themselves on the wrong end of this stick - literally - when they put it to the test. I don't know about you, but I'd rather pay the ninety bucks for the price of the ticket than have a stick surgically removed from my ass after falling on an upturned dead branch.

* * *

><p>BAD SHIT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU - <em>But at least now you know. Weekly horoscope by <strong>Aburame Shino<strong>_

I am sorry to say that a plague of locusts will be descending on all year of the rat, ox and snake within the next 24 hours. Run. Run like the wind. Try not to trip on all the year of the rabbit bastards screwing in the streets. There is a small chance that year of the monkeys are getting laid as well. Make the most of it. The rest of you are safe for the week.

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><p>SPORTS NEWS! - <em>Sports are a celebration of endless youth! Join me in reveling in them! Weekly column by <strong>Rock Lee!<strong>_

If you thought you were too fat, weak or talentless to make money as an actual athlete, you can now fulfill your dreams of brining meaning to the world by running your own fantasy sports team! Especially now that most actual sports teams are on the verge of bankruptcy or scandal! Keep sports pure! Make them imaginary! In celebration, I will go out and do an imaginary double-ultra-marathon! And also - [Oh, sorry. I have once again been informed that - due to space constraints on our webpage - I will have to end my posting here. But next week! There will be more space added to the internet by next week! And then I will post more!]

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><p>Sasuke boarded his evening flight to London at JFK International Airport. Taking over the venture capital side of the business from his father had quickly gotten him used to extensive travel. At first, the travel and pace of work had nearly crushed him, and he had wondered how his father had managed to do this for the past thirty years. But Sasuke quickly learned the ropes of international business travel, and now found it - if not enjoyable - at least survivable.<p>

He watched as a man wearing a crisply pressed business suit entered the first class cabin with him. _Amateur,_ Sasuke sneered. Sasuke was dressed comfortably in black sweat pants and a long-sleeved, dark blue T-shirt. The sweat pants hung low on his hips, the soft material showcasing his toned ass. The flight attendant with the red lipstick and red shoes slid her gaze over his body before snapping out of it and putting on her patented cheerful face.

"Mr. Uchiha, so nice to see you again. May I hang that for you?"

As usual, Sasuke had his suit pressed and hung on a padded hanger. This way it would not become crushed in his suitcase and require time-consuming pressing when he landed. "Yes, thank you," Sasuke told the woman smoothly, letting her take the hanger from him. Her finger brushed lightly along the back of his hand.

"Welcome to first class, Mr. Uchiha. Please let me know if there is anything at all that I can help you with."

The question and answer were always the same. "No. I'll be sleeping immediately after take-off. Please don't wake me for meals or duty-free."

The pretty blond flight attendant sighed, but her smile didn't falter. "Of course, sir."

Sasuke had learned how to fall asleep within ten minutes of take-off, which was fortunate, because whatever sleep he got on the 6 hour 30 minute flight would be all he would get until the following evening. His flight landed at 7am London time, and he had five client meetings in various locations around London, including a lunch and dinner meeting, before he would be boarding his flight back to Tokyo. He couldn't be falling asleep while hearing the proposals that the companies in his venture capital portfolio were pitching. His decisions would be final on which to invest in and which to walk away from, and it would make or break their earnings targets for next year if he didn't choose wisely.

Sasuke stored his briefcase and roller bag in the overhead bin. He settled into his wide, comfortable seat, relieved to see there was no one sitting next to him, and removed his shoes. The flight attendant came and offered him a choice of orange juice, champagne, water, or a drink of his choice. He requested a glass of merlot, and two bottles of water. The flight attendant gave him a wink and said she'd be more than happy to do that for him.

Sasuke forced his body to relax and sipped his wine, swirling the red liquid leisurely in his glass. First class had a reasonably good selection. He avoided the food wherever possible, though, because even in first class, airplane food was... airplane food. He felt no sadness about sleeping through the meals they would be serving during the overnight flight. He pulled out his phone and scanned his agenda that would dictate every moment of his time once he landed London, mentally going over the key issues he needed to probe on in each meeting. He had just finished when the announcement came that the doors were closing, and he turned the phone to airplane mode.

Leaning back in his seat, Sasuke held the wine glass lightly and closed his eyes. He mentally sorted through his impressions from the past two days of back-to-back meetings he'd had in New York. He needed to sleep on the flight and it wouldn't help if his mind was distracted by unfinished business. The wine helped to relax him, but he wouldn't have another glass. He'd learned the hard way that more alcohol just meant more dehydration from the already dry air on the plane, and that gave him headaches on top of his fatigue from the ever-changing time zones. So he would allow himself one glass through taxi and take-off, then would drink only water for the rest of the flight.

The plane waited in the queue for take-off for almost half an hour, but that was typical for JFK, and Sasuke was not perturbed. He used the time to outline the best way to summarize his findings and highlight the most critical decision points that he would need to present to Itachi and the board when he returned to Japan. His sharp, analytical mind quickly structured and dissected the issues, and by the time the plane had turned and was accelerating for take-off, he had made his decisions and knew how he would articulate them.

He held his now-empty glass to prevent it from sliding as the plane picked up speed. This was always his favorite part of the journey. No matter how many times he experienced it, the slight adrenaline rush of the plane racing along the ground then slowly lifting off never got old. As soon as the plane was up and turning towards its flight path to London, Sasuke reclined his seat, setting the empty glass on the side table, knowing an ever-attentive attendant would be by within seconds to collect it. He unpacked the pillow and blanket from their plastic, sanitized holdings and reclined the seat flat for sleeping.

He pulled the blanket over his head to keep the fluctuations in light from bothering his eyes, and put in his earbuds, setting his 'sleep' playlist on repeat to drown out the ambient sounds of people eating and annoying announcements from the pilot. Within ten minutes he was asleep, unaware of how the flight attendants' eyes drifted wistfully over his sleeping form beneath the blanket.

Sasuke woke six hours later as the plane began its descent into Heathrow International. He downed the two bottles of water to help rehydrate his system after the long flight, and stuffed his pillow and blanket into the bag as the flight attendants walked through to collect them.

"Here is your suit, Mr. Uchiha. I hope you enjoyed your flight," the woman said, struggling to prevent her cheeks from flushing at the sight of his slightly groggy and disheveled appearance. She wished he was waking up in her bed, rather than on the plane, but the handsome young businessman seemed so cold and reserved that she didn't dare offer.

. . . .

They always let first class passengers de-plane first, so Sasuke had no issues making his way quickly through passport control and customs. He had no check-through luggage, and simply headed towards the Virgin lounge in the airport where he had a steam shower, setting his suit in the small closet door where it would be pressed to perfection before he finished washing himself. He hated the smell of planes. The fuel and the scent of the other passengers always left him slightly nauseated, and he was grateful for the copious amounts of hot water in one of the tastefully appointed shower rooms he had requested in the first class lounge. While the shampoo and body wash weren't his brand, they were high end and the smell was not offensive.

He showered quickly, drying his hair and adding enough gel to keep it from going crazy. His one nod to vanity was the copious amount of lotion that he smoothed over his entire body to help his skin rehydrate after the drying effects of the plane air. Looking at himself naked in the mirror, he felt satisfaction at the toned and well-defined lines of his body. It was a point of pride that - no matter how busy his life was - he kept himself in shape.

He opened the small windowed closet and found his suit pressed, brushed and waiting for him. He dressed quickly, adjusted his tie, and stepped out of the spa area to find his driver in the lounge waiting for him.

"Mr. Uchiha. So nice to see you. Allow me to take your bag."

Sasuke handed his roller-bag to the man, keeping his briefcase with him so he could review the details of his upcoming meetings in the car. Twelve hours later, he'd be back for another shower, then would board the flight to Tokyo.

He had allocated the first four hours of the flight to writing up a report for Itachi and the board on his recommendations for the proposals he had evaluated over the past thirty-six hours, and drafting up a quick financial model to assess their risks and value to the existing portfolio. He would then have the remaining eight hours to sleep before landing and starting his full day there.

Sasuke thought wearily that it was fortunate that his father's marriage was arranged, because there was no way to have any sort of actual social life when your work takes up every waking minute of your day.

Fortunately, Sasuke had no interest in relationships. He generally found people annoying and - aside from the company of his brother - preferred solitude to socializing.

-xXx-

Sakura loved her new job. She'd only been working there a month, but there was something so energizing about the place. As the head of Public Relations and Communications for Uchiha Financial Holdings, Sakura had to deal with the random press inquiries, the requests for interviews with the owners, drafting internal communications and handling any PR disasters. Not that she expected any of the latter. If the Uchiha brothers were nothing else, they were controlled. The idea of any sort of scandal ever relating to them directly seemed a complete impossibility.

She booted up her computer and began her day the way she normally did, by scanning the headlines and making sure that their company or its owners weren't in any of them.

Her weekly meeting with Itachi was scheduled for later that morning, but she still had half an hour before she was supposed to meet him. That should give her plenty of time, though she didn't expect to actually find anything.

She took a sip of her coffee, enjoying the smooth taste of the high quality brew that the office served. Everything about their company was high quality. But the brothers expected high performance in return, and Sakura was going to be sure she didn't let them down. She took her job very seriously, and even though her best friend, Ino, thought she only took the job because of her extremely good-looking bosses, the truth was Sakura like the challenge of working for such a prestigious organization.

The fact that she got to have weekly meetings with Itachi who just happened to be the most attractive human being she had ever set eyes on was a nice bonus, but it wasn't her focus.

Just for fun, Sakura clicked over to a news site that some of her friends ran. She still had a couple of minutes, and always got a kick out of what the group of reprobates got up to. In a way, their job was the opposite of hers. She needed to use careful language to smooth things over. They were as politically incorrect as possible to stir things up. A small smile played on her lips at the thought.

Until she got to the second story on the site and her coffee sprayed all over her computer screen as she choked on it in a fit of coughing.

"No... Oh, no, no, no, no... Naruto I'm going to _kill you!_"

She frantically grabbed her phone and dialed. After his awful break-up with his last boyfriend, Sakura had called Naruto every couple of days to check in on him, until finally he had told her that she needed to get a different hobby and stop mothering him. She had reluctantly obeyed, and slowed her checking in on him to only weekly. But Naruto had thrown himself into work with a vengeance, rarely hanging out with anyone not employed at The Daily Ramen, and Sakura had been busy looking for a job then getting up to speed in her new role. It had been nearly three months since she had talked to him.

But that didn't mean she wasn't going to kill him for this.

"_Hey, Sakura! I haven't heard from you in forever! What's up?"_

"You are so freaking dead, Uzumaki!"

"_What? Are you talking about that guy I gave your number to who was hitting on me at the bar? Because I was totally wasted and that was all Kiba's fault because he -"_

_"_What? You gave some gay guy my number instead of yours? Why didn't you just make up a number?"

_"Wait, that's not what you're mad about? Is it because I told Shika that your hair looked kinda like Nicki Minaj's? Because I was totally joking and -"_

"Naruto! How could you even... what are you..."

"_Um, ok, so I'm just going to stop guessing now before I totally screw myself more. Sakura, why are you calling me?"_

"I'm calling you because I'm the freaking _head of PR _at Uchiha Financial Corp, and you just ran a headline on the front page of your stupid paper talking about my bosses being homophobic nymphomaniacs! I'm going to kick your blond ass to Australia! I want you to take down that article before -"

Sakura froze as a throat cleared behind her. Feeling like she was trapped in some sort of horror film, she slowly turned around to see Itachi standing behind her.

"What is this about your friend writing an article about Sasuke and me being homophobic nymphomaniacs?"

"Naruto - I gotta go. Make sure your will is finalized."

Sakura hung up, not taking her gaze from her impassive boss. "Itachi-san. You're early this morning," Sakura said, trying to force her face into a smile, knowing it was pointless.

"I think you need to print whatever you were just discussing with your friend and meet me in my office. It appears we have more than usual to discuss this morning."

Sakura sighed as Itachi turned and walked seemingly calmly down the hall to his corner office. If Naruto cost her this job, she was going to move into his apartment until he found her a new one. And eat all his ramen, just for good measure.

Drawing a steadying breath, Sakura hit print then took the still-warm pages to her boss's office. She was only glad that Sasuke hadn't returned yet. Itachi was able to remain polite regardless of the circumstances. The younger of the brothers was sarcastic and biting on a _good _day. When he was annoyed... well... he certainly wouldn't win a Miss Congeniality award any time soon.

The swimsuit contest he probably had a shot at, though.

. . . .

Itachi finished reading the print-outs that Sakura had given him. She had shown several issues of _The Daily Ramen_ to try to give some context, but she wasn't sure if it was helping or hurting her cause.

"So, you were saying that you went to high school with the two founders of this... periodical... and you are close personal friends with Uzumaki Naruto, who wrote this week's column featuring my brother and me?" Itachi asked, his voice, as always, inflectionless.

"Um, yes, Itachi-san," Sakura said, wishing she had a better read on whether her employer was amused, angry, or indifferent.

"And did this Mr. Uzumaki request an interview with either Sasuke or myself in advance of this article?"

"No, Itachi-san. Naruto didn't know that I'd started work here, so -"

"I see. Well, then. Since he has already shown such an interest in my brother and myself, I propose we invite Mr. Uzumaki in for an interview. You'll take care of the scheduling, yes?"

"Y-yes, of course, Itachi-san. But... I should just warn you that Naruto is a bit -"

"I'm sure we'll get along just fine. You just make sure he shows up in this office sometime this week. I'm sure Sasuke would love to make his acquaintance as well."

And then Itachi did something that made Sakura's blood run cold.

He smiled.

-xXx-

Sasuke stepped out of the elevator at the ground floor of the luxury high rise that he lived in. He had gotten in late last night and had barely managed to get six hours of sleep before it was time to be up and showering for work. Today he had to present his recommendations to the board, but he'd meet with Itachi first to go over a few key points. God, he needed coffee. He didn't have to travel every week, but even every other week was draining on him. He'd continue until they had the running of the business fully transitioned from their father and operating smoothly. But then he was going to talk with Itachi about hiring a head of VC that could cover Europe, and one for the US. The markets were large enough to justify it. Their father had been a control freak when it came to running the business, never delegating anything. And it had landed him in the hospital with a triple bypass surgery and high risk of stroke by the time he was fifty.

Not the path Sasuke wanted to follow in the long haul.

He had just entered the high end coffee shop that was situated conveniently in the ground floor of his apartment building when a familiar figure waiting in the short line caught his eye. Sasuke noted that the annoying blond was once again wearing jeans and a T-shirt. The person in front of the blond finished placing their order, and he walked up to the counter to talk to the barist. Sasuke had crossed to get in line behind him, noticing once again how well the blond filled out his worn-looking jeans. The snug T-shirt appeared soft and thin, and the contours of the tan man's back were discernible beneath its smooth surface.

Not that Sasuke was interested.

. . . . . .

**5 minutes earlier - **

Naruto walked in to the coffee shop across the street from his office. He had long ago given up trying to make his own coffee in the morning, even though it was way more expensive to buy it from the coffee shop. But his coffee always ended up resembling black sludge, no matter how many times he read the instructions on the coffee bean pack. It might have to do with the fact that he had purchased the cheapest coffee machine that he could find. I mean, how great can a ten dollar coffee-maker really work? But the $600 cappuccino machine that he had really wanted was completely out of his budget. Plus, he wasn't sure he really wanted to have to deal with all the clean-up of the milk-frothing part as regularly as would be needed. Disposable plates were really more his speed for clean-up.

So having made the decision that - for his own health reasons (specifically, avoiding getting food poisoning for his inability to properly clean his kitchen appliances) - he would continue to pay his four dollars per cup of cappuccino each morning from the shop across the street. It was on the ground floor of one of the luxury apartment complexes, so it wasn't cheap but the coffee was amazing. It was his one splurge. Naruto could never quite remember the name of the shop, because it was something in French, but he ignored the snootiness of the atmosphere in deference to their truly amazing coffee.

Finally it was his turn in line. "I'll have a cappuccino with double milk and sugar," Naruto said, his mouth already watering at the though of the sweet hot milk with the hint of coffee.

"Why does it not surprise me that you drink your coffee like a child," a sarcastic baritone voice came from behind him.

_That same fucking arrogant voice._

Naruto reluctantly turned around, annoyed that his one indulgence of the day had been marred by that _asshole _from the grocery store.

"Seriously?" Naruto asked, for the moment so annoyed he couldn't even formulate a come-back, which was fairly unusual for him. He wrote it up to his lack of morning coffee.

Taking advantage of Naruto's momentary silence, Sasuke stepped forward to place his order. He reached back to get his wallet, the motion causing the thin cotton of his designer shirt to pull taut across his toned chest and flat stomach that tapered into narrow hips, contrasting well with the breadth of his shoulders beneath his well-tailored suit jacket.

"Green tea, no sugar."

Naruto rolled his eyes, forcing them to look somewhere other than the man's body. "Oh, so you're one of _those_."

Sasuke knew he shouldn't respond. But somehow he couldn't quite stop himself. "One of those_ what_?"

"One of those people who think that by removing all the pleasure from the foods they eat - sugarless tea, tons of tasteless vegetables, brown rice shit - they're going to live forever. Although why you'd _want _to is beyond me. If my life was as sterile and boring and fucking _joyless _as yours, I'd be throwing myself off the first roof-top I had access to."

Sasuke felt his eye twitch. Joyless? Who the hell even used words like that to describe things? "Well, given that you know absolutely nothing about me, I will somehow manage to refrain from throwing myself off the nearest building at your sage advice."

"I don't need to know you. You walk around in your high-end, boring-as-hell funeral-looking business suits, making snide comments to strangers who are just minding their own business enjoying the simple pleasures in life. As far as I can tell, you only have like two facial expressions: sneering and smirking. I mean, I don't have to be a psychic to tell you're an asshole."

"Says the guy wearing clothes that look like they were bought at a thrift shop, who's probably spending his rent money on a coffee from a place he likely can't even spell the full name of."

Naruto smirked, leaning back against the counter as he waited for his coffee. The motion drew attention to the tight black T-shirt that he was wearing, and the way it clung to the blond's well-defined torso and arms. _He probably does some sort of manual labor for a job,_ Sasuke thought condescendingly. You don't get a body like that working behind a desk. _Probably digs ditches or something._

"Wow. So you're not only a total asshole, but your an _elitist _one as well. Don't you just take the fucking 'nice-guy' cake," Naruto said, accepting his coffee from the barista and thanking her with a friendly grin. He took a drink of his coffee, refusing to let this asshole spoil the indulgence he'd already paid for, and licked the small bit of sweet foam from his lip.

Sasuke's eyes followed the motion of Naruto's pink tongue, then dropped back to the blond's chest where he finally noticed the lettering: _I am FIGURATIVELY sick to death of people misusing the word LITERALLY._

Somehow the words didn't fit with the mental image he had in his mind of Naruto being an illiterate ditch-digger. "Whose shirt are you wearing? Doing the walk of shame this morning? I guess that would explain why you're in this apartment building. You clearly can barely afford the coffee, much less the rent."

Naruto snorted. "Yeah, butthead. I spent the night getting railed by some rich intellectual who lives in this building, then took his shirt in the morning. Because of course I could _never_ have picked out this shirt on my own, being the low-class, uneducated manual laborer that you clearly think I am."

"Butthead? Very mature," Sasuke said, accepting the tea and trying to block out the mental image of some faceless guy driving into Naruto's perfect ass.

"Hey, you're the one who appears to spend hours each morning trying to make his hair into a stylized duck's ass. I'm just acknowledging your efforts." With that Naruto turned. "I've got to go get to my job at the construction site. Can't be late for work or the foreman will have my ass. And his T-shirts aren't as cool."

"So you _do _work construction?" Sasuke asked, feeling somehow better about the whole conversation as long as Naruto came out a ditch-digger in the end.

Naruto just laughed. "God, you're such a fucker," he said and walked out of the coffee shop, realizing he still didn't know the asshole's name, but hoped they'd quit running into each other.

He hadn't looked at his phone to see the text message from Sakura that he needed to be down at Uchiha Financial Holdings tomorrow.

-xXx-

_to be continued..._

yes, the Italian porn-star politician story was inspired by Cicciolina. Hinata's feature was based on a hilarious suggestion/experience from Animerockchick. Shino's plague of locusts is brought to you by the wonderful mind of KH Freak 813. Sports News is loosely inspired by Rasengan22's comment recently that she is getting pulled into fantasy sports. And Sasuke's life is inspired by my own, though I have a different job I have actually done the flights and meeting schedule shown here. And it sucked.

I will continue to weave in ideas people send for column content, or Naruto's T-shirts. :-)


	3. Chapter 3 - A belated interview

**Summary:**

Naruto runs an underground newspaper called 'The Daily Ramen', focused on poking fun at the fragile egos of the rich and famous. How does Sasuke respond when he moves to town and gets in Naruto's crosshairs? Not particularly well. Sasuke x Naruto (Yaoi boy x boy)

**Warning:** Sarcasm and taunting. Verging on crack. Sasuke checking out Naruto's ass.

**Author's note:** Thanks for the reviews and ideas, and to BriEva for sanity-checking me (a lost cause, I know). I now have a huge list of awesome T-shirt ideas that have been nominated, as well as some pretty funny PDA and dumbass of the day ones. If you don't see yours in this chapter, don't worry... it will likely appear soon. As always, credits for 'news tips' are listed at the bottom!

Oh, and a couple of you have asked if this fic has 'mood music'. I listen to everything from Franz Liszt to Lil' Kim (you can probably guess the Lil' Kim parts) but if I had to pick a 'theme song' or two for this fic, I guess it would be "I know you want me" by Pitbull and "One more night" by Maroon5. Not super deep. LOL

-xXx-

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><p><strong>The Daily Ramen, October 3 <strong>

OUR DUMB WORLD_ - Things that are going on in other places that you couldn't care less about. Weekly column by **Nara Shikamaru**_

New legislation has been introduced to mandate that school girls' skirts become even shorter. Not quite satisfied with the amount of pedophilia inspired by the already suggestive and revealing clothing of our young girls, the legislature is considering shortening the girls' skirts by another three centimeters. "We can't quite see their panties," explains one congressman. "Voters have expressed strong interest in this, as evidenced by the popular female caricatures in most anime." Not to be outdone, the female legislators are requesting tighter pants and much thinner fabric of the shirts that the young boys will wear. "The ties are hot. We just need to see a bit more booty, though we have agreed that assless chaps go a bit too far," explained one congresswoman. "Besides, given the dropping birthrate in Japan, this should help at least boost the teenage pregnancy numbers, especially for co-ed schools. Growth has to come from somewhere for our country to survive. It is our job as legislators to ensure this growth."

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><p>IN OTHER NEWS - <em>If you think you didn't care about Nara's stuff, you REALLY won't care about this. Weekly column by <strong>Uzumaki Naruto<strong>_

Physicists from around the globe gathered at the latest black tie society event that was held in Konoha's most exclusive country club to see if the sheer number of self-absorbed asshole attendees would be sufficient enough to cause the formation of a black hole, an event which could provide significant learnings to the scientific community. Unfortunately, the event appeared to just barely miss the threshold of ego required for black hole formation. It is speculated that had Hyuuga Neji attended as planned, the 'self absorption' level would have more than exceeded the necessary threshold for the black hole to appear. Scientists are already scanning the high society calendars for the next likely opportunity.

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><p>I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE -<em> Seriously, people. If you don't know what you're doing sexually, can you please just keep it in your own bedrooms? Weekly column by <strong>Hyuuga Hinata<strong>_

I would be the first to admit that a little PDA can be fun. I mean, where would I be without the occasional office-room tryst to accidentally stumble across? But there is a difference between courting the _risk_ of being caught, and just straight-up having sex out in the open.

I was visiting a friend of mine in Madrid last weekend when we came across a couple screwing between two parked cars. In the middle of the afternoon. On a fairly busy street. I have to say that even I was shocked by this flagrant display of humping flesh. And the couple's seeming obliviousness to the numerous cameras that were whipped out and recording them going at it. Probably the most disturbing part was how casual they were about finishing up. Simply wiping themselves off (with a shared tissue no less... clearly their need for intimacy knows no bounds), righting their clothing then walking off.

This is why I always carry Purell to use after shaking hands with strangers. You never know what those hands were just doing. I give them a 9 for sheer brazenness, but a 3 for hygiene.

* * *

><p>DUMBASS OF THE DAY - <em>Because some people are just so dumb, they really do deserve an award for it. Weekly award by <strong>Inuzuka Kiba<strong>_

Recently, a man convicted of multiple counts of rape and murder was released from a Texas prison (where he had been waiting on death row) due to a technicality. One month later, as the man was attempting to use a knife to extract a piece of bread that was jammed in his toaster, he electrocuted himself in his own kitchen. He was pronounced dead on the scene by EMTs. While I wish I could give the toaster a high five, the best I can do is to award the man 'dumbass of the day'. And who says karma doesn't exist?

* * *

><p>BAD SHIT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU - <em>But at least now you know. Weekly horoscope by <strong>Aburame Shino<strong>_

I am very sorry to say that all year of the dragon will be slowly and violently killed by ninjas this week. The good news is it will be entertaining as hell for the rest of us to watch (except for the rabbits - who will probably be too busy screwing again). The Rat, Rooster, and Dog should try applying for new jobs (given that all the Dragons will be dead, there should be a few openings). No news for the rest of you. Just take the week off and enjoy the show.

* * *

><p>SPORTS NEWS! - <em>Sports are a celebration of endless youth! Join me in reveling in them! Weekly column by <strong>Rock Lee!<strong>_

American football players will now have tiny MRI cameras embedded in their brains, so fans can actually see the brain damage incurred as they slam their sweaty, spandex-clothed bodies together! Imagine the new level of excitement we can feel with each tackle! How much closer to the action we will all be! Um... actually.. that's kind of all I have to say on this... usually they cut me off much sooner...

* * *

><p>-xXx-<p>

Sasuke's eyes scanned the page that Itachi had handed him when he arrived at his office that morning. His run-in with the annoying blond was still fresh in Sasuke's mind, causing him to lose focus and need to re-read the text a second time. He didn't know exactly what it was that he found so irritating about the blond. Aside from... everything.

"This was written by one of Sakura's friends," Itachi said.

Sasuke looked over where the pink-haired head of PR was biting her lip. He wasn't sure if she was nervous or trying to keep from laughing. Probably a bit of both. "Figures," he said acidly. "This city seems to be teeming with loud-mouthed idiots out to annoy me."

Itachi raised an eyebrow. "What other 'loud-mouthed idiots' have you met? You haven't mentioned anything to me."

Sasuke looked uncomfortable, as though he wished he hadn't mentioned it. Itachi immediately scented blood in the water. "Someone caught your interest? Anyone I should be aware of?"

Sakura watched the interplay between brothers with undisguised fascination. Usually, Sasuke seemed so cold and unapproachable. But right now he actually looked... flustered. Itachi got a predatory light in his eyes that - well, to be frank - that Sakura found unbelievably hot. She forced herself to look away before she started to drool. That would be unprofessional.

"Don't be absurd. It's just some moron I ran into once or twice in some shops near my apartment. I'm sure I won't see him again. It's a big city."

"Hn," Itachi said, a dark glint lighting his eyes. It was rare that someone could get under his little brother's skin. That a complete stranger appeared to have done so this quickly fascinated Itachi. It definitely bore looking into. The entertainment value alone would be priceless.

"I had Sakura extend an invitation to the author of this article to come in and interview us. He will be here today at 11am."

Sasuke looked at Itachi as though he had just said they would be throwing a birthday party for a room full of six-year-olds. "Why would you give this... _person._.. even the semblance of legitimacy that interviewing you would bring? We've turned down 90% of the _actual_ news reporters who requested it. This," Sasuke said with a disparaging flick at the page he was holding, "doesn't qualify as news."

Itachi smirked. "Foolish little brother. This is why you are not allowed to have anything to do with managing the external relations or public image of the company. The circulation of this 'unqualified' newspaper is double that of the leading 'serious' papers. It's always good to have people like this on your side. They are allowed to write things that other papers can't because of the nature of the content."

Sasuke rolled his eyes in annoyance, tossing the article down on Itachi's desk. "Fine. You can meet with him. I have_ actual work_ to do."

Sasuke turned and left. Sakura noticed Itachi looking after him, thoughtfully. Almost... calculating.

She shivered. She wasn't sure if it was from fear or from lust. With Itachi, it always seemed like it was a bit of both for almost anyone who met him.

-xXx-

"Hahaha!" Kiba was still laughing as Naruto sat in his chair at his desk. "This is like... the sixth time this year you've been called on the carpet by the PR rep of someone you wrote about."

Naruto shrugged. "Whatever. At least I didn't get called by the Prime Minister's office like Nara did."

Kiba snickered. "He just wanted to find out how Shika knew about all the hookers."

"I'm sure if the Uchiha brothers were going to sue me, Sakura would have given me a heads up. They're probably just going to do the usual 'you don't want to get on our bad side' speech. It'll be fine. It's not like we haven't been sued before. It always gets dismissed." Naruto had been getting in trouble for his mouth since he learned how to talk. At this point, it didn't faze him much.

Shikamaru yawned and stretched, accepting the cup of coffee that Naruto offered him as he walked into the room. He looked over at the small couch where Lee was sound asleep and wondered if he could evict the man based on seniority and take his spot. "Well, if I were you, I'd be less worried about the Uchihas suing you, and more worried about Sakura kicking your ass."

Naruto blinked, then scratched the back of his head, suddenly feeling nervous. Sakura's temper was nothing to joke about. "I'm sure she's mellowed out now that we're all older and out of school and stuff. Plus it's not like I knew she was working there."

Kiba and Shikamaru exchanged glances. "I've got fifty bucks says Sakura kicks his ass in her office," Kiba said.

"Deal," Shikamaru said, shaking the man's hand. "I think she'll wait until she's out of the building and kick his ass privately given that she's the head of PR and her boss will be standing right there."

"_Fuck,_" Kiba said, realizing he'd already lost. Damn Shikamaru for always thinking too much. Kiba had yet to win one of their bets. But it never stopped him from trying.

"Shino, man - you in?" Kiba asked the quiet man standing in the corner, hoping to spread the pain a bit from the money he'd just lost to Shikamaru.

"No. I will not take part in this bet. Why? Because neither of those things will happen. Naruto should think like a rabbit today," Shino stated, nodding his head for emphasis.

Kiba and Naruto exchanged puzzled glances, while Shikamaru looked at Shino thoughtfully. Lee snored slightly as he shifted in his sleep on Naruto's cramped office couch.

"Naruto," Hinata said, walking into his small office. The entire staff of _The Daily Ramen_ was now squeezed into the tiny space. Except for one. "You have to talk to Sai again. He keeps insisting that drawing pictures of your penis would increase the circulation of the newspaper. He isn't submitting anything else this week."

"It will increase _Sai's_ circulation in his own penis, is more like it," Kiba snickered. Naruto smacked him across the back of the head.

"He's got other political cartoons already sketched out. I think he has one of the French President bed hopping between his 'first ladies' or something. He's just yanking your chain, Hinata. It's a battle of wills. But I'm going to win this one," Naruto grinned smugly.

Shikamaru leaned against the wall, eyes closed as he seemingly drifted off to sleep standing up. "You only say that because you know the contract we signed with him only pays him for _published_ drawings. If he wants to get paid, he has to draw what you want. That's not a battle of wills. That's pay for service," Shikamaru said, opening his eyes to reassess his options for evicting Lee from the couch. He had a sofa in his own office, but Naruto's was already warmed up.

"Whatever. I think we all agree that a drawing of my penis wouldn't actually help us sell more papers," Naruto said, laughing a bit. Complete silence followed his statement, as everyone seemed to be busy looking elsewhere.

"I don't know," Hinata said finally. "I might buy an extra copy of that."

"_Hinata_!" Naruto said, chucking his empty paper coffee cup at her.

She caught it in one hand and laughed, though a slight blush tinged her cheeks. "Hey, a girl can look."

-xXx-

Naruto had to admit he felt a little out-of-place in the excessively formal and polished lobby of Uchiha Financial Holdings later that morning. The terrifyingly efficient woman at the security desk looked at Naruto's "Good Grammar is Sexy" T-shirt and jeans a bit skeptically as she sat in her well-pressed black suit.

"You said you were here to see Uchiha Itachi?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Um.. yes? Haruno Sakura sent me a message saying I was supposed to meet him here today at 11."

"ID please," the woman said, already dialing up to the head of PR to find out what was going on. Naruto dug his driver's license out of his old frog wallet and handed it to her. The woman spoke quietly into the phone, giving him a once-over before hanging up.

"Very well," she said, handing his ID back. "You can go up. It is on the 50th floor."

Naruto walked over to the shiny, steel elevators and selected the correct floor.

When he arrived on the 50th floor, Sakura was there to greet him. She gave him a tiny hug, followed by a short cuff to his head. "Behave," she whispered. "Itachi is a really good guy. But a little scary sometimes. I don't think he's that mad, though."

Naruto shrugged. "Honestly, I was more afraid of you. Did you know that Kiba and Shika are taking bets as to whether you would kick my ass right in the office, or wait to corner me in an alley out back?"

Sakura huffed. She _might _have been thinking something along those lines. But if she was getting so predictable about it that the boys were laying bets on her, then she would control herself.

The glint in Naruto's eye told her that he had counted on that reaction for getting him off the hook. She would have stuck her tongue out at him if it wasn't beneath her dignity as the head of PR at Uchiha.

Naruto laughed, clearly aware of what was going through her head. Given that they'd known each other since grade school, she figured it wasn't that surprising. "I swear I didn't know you were working here. Ino had just said something about you working for a couple of hotties, but -"

"Shhhhhhhh!" Sakura said, her cheeks pinkening as she looked around frantically to see if anyone had heard. "Don't say things like that here! Just... try to not get me in trouble, ok? I really like this job!"

Naruto opened his mouth to try to reassure her that he would try to be on his best behavior (whatever _that _was) when he felt someone standing behind him.

He turned and for a moment thought he had run into his asshole stalker. But this man was slightly taller and older, his hair not spiked up but rather tied into a low ponytail.

Sakura pasted on a fake smile, clearly trying to hide her nerves. Naruto took a bit of pity on her, seeing the admiration shine in her eyes for this man who was clearly her boss.

"Uchiha-san. This is my friend Uzumaki Naruto, the journalist that you requested we set up a meeting with," Sakura began, her tone formal and polite.

"Ah, Naruto-kun. Sakura has told me a bit about you. Please, come to my office so we can chat," Itachi said smoothly.

Naruto shot Sakura a side-glance, suddenly feeling much more nervous than he had before. He wasn't intimidated by rich or powerful people. But Itachi was... something else entirely. Controlled, elegant, horrifyingly attractive... Naruto surreptitiously wiped his suddenly sweaty hands on his jeans. Naruto was good at reading people. He got the sense that Itachi was also ruthlessly intelligent. If the man were seriously offended by Naruto's article, this could be more of a problem than usual.

But it was too late at this point to change what had been released, so Naruto simply followed the man to his large, corner office. Naruto estimated that about eight of his offices at the Daily Ramen could fit inside it.

"Uchiha-san. I was surprised to receive an invitation to speak with you," Naruto began in what he thought was a polite way until Sakura kicked his ankle.

Itachi's eyebrows rose. "Oh? Do you not generally interview the subjects of your publication?"

Naruto shot a glance to Sakura, hoping she could mentally transmit some sort of 'politically correct' verbiage for him to use here, but she simply stared straight ahead as though already resigning herself to the worst.

"Well... no. I mean, it's kind of just a joke newspaper, you know? We don't go all out like Ali G and try to stage fake interviews or anything. We just make things up for fun."

Itachi smirked. "And of course, once you actually interview someone, you are constrained to write what was actually said or you are subject to legal risk. Whereas if you claim that they were 'unavailable', you can make up whatever you want and put it in your paper as simply speculation or opinion."

Naruto realized that this was the whole reason Itachi had invited him in. To restrain him. While frustrating, he had to admit that his admiration for the man grew even further, and he chuckled. "You're a lot smarter than most of the other businessmen I've met, aren't you, Uchiha-san?"

Itachi returned the smile. "Please, call me Itachi. Now that we understand each other, I hope I can rely on you to request an actual interview with me if you should decide to print anything further about myself or my brother."

Naruto sighed in defeat. "You know that totally sucks all the fun out of it, right? It would have been so much better if you had been some arrogant, stupid asshole that I could go home and write my next column on."

Humor glinted from Itachi's dark eyes, "I'm sure there are endless targets for you to have fun with."

Naruto didn't bother to deny that fact. But now his interest was truly piqued about this man.

"So... can I actually ask you questions, then? Or was this more just to make sure I stopped messing around with you?" Naruto asked directly.

Itachi glanced at his watch. "I have a few minutes before my next appointment. What would you like to know?"

"Well..." Naruto asked, somewhat surprised that he hadn't just been dismissed now that the man had gotten what he wanted. "Do you like your job?"

Itachi blinked somewhat in surprise. "Usually people ask me if I'm dating anyone, or what my net worth is. You want to know if I'm... happy?"

Naruto shrugged. "This seems like a cool place to work, I guess. But it looks pretty high pressure. I heard you took it over from your dad, so I was wondering if you really liked it, or just felt like you had to do it because of your family."

Itachi looked thoughtful for a moment. "I like many aspects of it. It's mentally challenging, and some parts of the business actually interest me. We have a division that does seed funding for environmental projects and clean energy research. But it is also true that Sasuke and I took over the operations to take the pressure off our father due to his health. Fugaku wasn't comfortable handing the running of the business over to anyone who wasn't in the family, so it had to be us or he was going to keep working."

"Sasuke?"

"My little brother. He sends his regrets this morning, but he had work to catch up on," Itachi lied smoothly. The smirk on Naruto's face said he likely detected the lie, but wasn't going to call Itachi on it.

"Why did you choose Konoha as the place to relocate the business?"

"Well, there were financial and tax incentives to do so. And Konoha, being such a large city, had the infrastructure and talent pool we were looking for. But honestly, we had to relocate away from where our parents live because otherwise our father kept stopping by the office every day trying to manage everything, even after his doctors ordered him to quit. Konoha is far enough away that he can't easily just drive over on a whim. He still calls most days, but at least Sasuke and I can manage his level of involvement more easily. And our mother makes sure he doesn't hop on a plane and fly out here," a small smile touched Itachi's face at the mention of his mother. Naruto found it charming. He sighed. It was clear he was not going to be able to dislike this man.

Naruto looked at Itachi for a moment, before breaking into an honest smile that clearly took the older man aback a bit. "It's too bad you're so rich. Otherwise my next question would be whether you'd ever consider going out to dinner with a younger, poorer, politically incorrect man. But, um... if you ever go bankrupt or something, just give me a call. Any time. Like _really _any time."

Itachi smirked, clearly used to having this effect on people. He found Naruto's directness and lack of artifice refreshing. And quite likable. Sakura was torn between wanting to kick Naruto for hitting on her boss right in front of her, and ecstatic that Naruto was showing any kind of interest in someone. "Naruto!" she hissed, deciding that - either way - this wasn't the right place for it.

"Oh, sorry, Sakura. I didn't realize that you had dibs," Naruto smirked evilly as Sakura turned 50 shades of red fighting hard not to look at her unbelievably hot employer to see what his reaction might be to Naruto's comment. "Don't worry... Itachi is out of my league. He couldn't take me anywhere because I'd just embarrass him. But I did really enjoy meeting you today," Naruto said, standing bowing respectfully to the older man. "And... no hard feelings about the column last week?"

Itachi stood and returned the polite gesture. Just then, there was an impatient knock on the door.

"Itachi - you were supposed to meet me five minutes ago in my office to discuss the next round of due diligence reports on the latest set of acquisition targets," a younger version of Itachi appeared in the doorway. A very _familiar_-looking younger version of Itachi.

. . . . . . .

"You! What the fuck are you doing here?" Naruto stared at the face that had been annoying him (_not_ turning him on) for the past two weeks. And then slowly it clicked. The resemblance between his bastard stalker and the man he had just interviewed.

"I work here, Dobe," Sasuke said. "What are you doing in my brother's office? I can't believe we've reached the so far down into the dregs of the application pool that he'd seriously be considering hiring someone like you."

Sakura's eyebrows rose. This was the most she had ever heard the younger Uchiha speak, outside of the times he was giving a presentation.

Uncertain, she glanced over at Itachi. And found him eyeing his brother with unholy amusement. And... a look of knowing.

"Have the two of you met?" Itachi asked innocently.

Naruto answered Itachi without taking his eyes off Sasuke. "This guy is a total dick!" Naruto said, pointing wildly at Sasuke. "He's been following me around town being annoying and saying shitty things just to piss me off!"

Itachi looked curiously at Sasuke, where a small trace of red was appearing across his cheekbones.

"Moron, I am _not_ following you. You were getting coffee in the lobby of _my _apartment building. If anything, _you _were following _me_."

"I've been getting coffee at..." Naruto once again forgot that damn French name of the shop. He could see the smirk starting to form on his nemesis' face, so he just plowed ahead. "...at that prissy coffee shop whatever it is... for like _three years_! You weren't even living in Konoha when I started going there! Which means _you_ followed _me._"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "You got me, moron. I moved all the way to Konoha and rented an apartment in that specific building just so I could watch your annoying ass buy your watered-down, child's version of coffee."

"See!" Naruto said, turning to Sakura and then Itachi, as if seeking their confirmation of Sasuke's bad behavior. He turned back to Sasuke, pointing rudely at him again. "If you spill any of your assholeness on my friend, I will..."

"Naruto!" Sakura said, biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood to keep herself from laughing at the unbelievable response that her friend was drawing out of her usually cold, emotionless second boss.

Naruto stopped his outburst with obvious effort, his eyes still latched on the face of his tormentor. "Well, Itachi, I'll hold to what I said to you earlier. If I have anything I want to write regarding _you_, I will discuss it with you first. But your brother here... is just my type." Naruto said, his eyes narrowing.

Sasuke snorted. "Like you have a chance in hell with me, dumbass."

Itachi had to use all his Uchiha reserve to not face palm.

"Oh, no. I don't mean my type for _dating_, Uchiha," Naruto said to Sasuke, smiling ferally. Naruto turned to Sakura. "Sakura-chan, I gotta go. We have this new political cartoonist and he keeps trying to post drawings of my penis on our website. I told Shika I'd handle it this morning. Nice meeting you, Itachi."

With a final glare at Sasuke, Naruto turned and left.

Itachi and Sakura both noticed Sasuke's eyes on Naruto's ass as the blond walked off.

Itachi's eyes met Sakura's. Itachi raised an elegant brow in question. Sakura smiled slowly. They both had exactly the same idea.

. . . .

"Well, I suppose that meeting went as well as could be expected," Sakura said, drawing Sasuke's focus away from the sight of Naruto's retreating form.

Sasuke frowned. "What did that idiot have to say about it all?"

Itachi crossed his legs, leaning back in his chair. He was definitely enjoying this situation. "Hn, Naruto-kun told me he'd like to take me out to dinner."

"What! You are _not_ going to be seen in public with that uneducated -"

"Actually, Naruto has a degree from the top journalism program in Japan," Sakura said casually, fighting to keep her face as disinterested as Itachi's. "And he is co-owner of one of the most widely-read newspapers here as well."

Sasuke blinked, not quite able to hide his surprise at learning this. "That doesn't make him any less of an idiot."

Itachi's look of sheer glee almost made Sakura lose it. "Oh, I don't know. I found him rather charming. Intelligent. Witty. Independent. A real entrepreneur. Wouldn't you agree, Sakura?"

Nearly shaking with the urge to snicker, Sakura nodded sagely. "And he's very active in the community. There was a gym owner that was being targeted by a frivolous lawsuit. He had just opened up and didn't have a lot of additional capital to hire an attorney. But Naruto ran a story basically making fun of the guy suing him. It caused so much bad publicity for the guy, he dropped the charges. Saved the gym owner's business and life investment. Which is good, because it is now the best gym in Konoha. It has great facilities, good personal trainers, and is quite exclusive in its members. In appreciation, the guy gave Naruto a free lifetime membership."

"Oh? That sounds interesting. I've been meaning to find a good gym. What was the name of it again?" Itachi asked, playing along.

"Top Fitness," Sakura said, managing to not glance at Sasuke.

"So Naruto managed to get a free gym membership for himself. Who cares," Sasuke turned toward the door. "Itachi - we need to go over those numbers. I'll be in my office."

Itachi watched his brother leave with great satisfaction. Nothing entertained him more than messing in his little brother's personal life. "I think I should get my little brother a membership at a gym. He seems to have a bit of... _tension_ that needs to be worked out."

Sakura grinned. She couldn't agree more.

-xXx-

_to be continued..._

The lovely SweetHeaven was the inspiration for Hinata's article (no, she wasn't the one between the cars, let me be clear), Shika's article was inspired by ... someone who's PM I can't find but they forwarded me an article about the dropping birth rate in Japan as an indicator that women are not interested in sex with Japanese men anymore (I will keep searching and give you proper credit next time! Or PM me again and remind me), the death of dragons was brought to you by Codename Jellybean, and Naruto's T-shirt this week was chosen by Kiddo20.

PS I _really_ want to do a 'birthday edition' on Oct 10 for this fic for plot reasons involving Naruto's ex, so I am going to try super hard to get the next chap out in 1 week. Let's see if I can actually manage it.


	4. Chapter 4 - A birthday edition

**Summary:**

Naruto runs an underground newspaper called 'The Daily Ramen', focused on poking fun at the fragile egos of the rich and famous. How does Sasuke respond when he moves to town and gets in Naruto's crosshairs? Not particularly well. Sasuke x Naruto (Yaoi boy x boy)

**Warning:** Alcohol and ex-boyfriends. Plotting friends and scheming big brothers. Sexual language and other bad language.

**Author's note:** I am pretty excited about posting this actually on Naruto's birthday. Since this is my first year writing fanfiction, this is really my first chance to do something like this. Yay! Now of course the manga is ending, so who knows if anyone will be reading Naruto fanfics next year. But I'll get to do it at least once LOL. Oh, and for those of you worried that this will be an ItaSaku story, you can relax. I almost never allow Itachi to have sex in my stories. I like it to be a bit of a mystery (because, of course, Itachi has to be saving himself for me LOL). If I had Itachi paired explicitly with someone, it would be ItaShisui, or ItaNaru, or SIN (whatever, it's hot).

-xXx-

* * *

><p><strong>The Daily Ramen, October 10th SPECIAL EDITION<strong>

OUR DUMB WORLD_ - Things that are going on in other places that you couldn't care less about. Weekly column by **Nara Shikamaru**_

Recent scientific research shows that heterosexual males' stress levels (and therefore risk of heart failure) drop significantly when viewing women's naked breasts. There is a working hypothesis that the visual stimuli of a male ass is the equivalent for gay men. Likely for bi men, it's an either/or situation. Interestingly, people who over-indulge in greasy, take-out ramen see their risk of heart failure increase, making it an even more critical issue to mitigate. Despite all of this medical research, one local man is standing strong in his retarded self-proclaimed celibacy, for a reason that none of his friends here at the Daily Ramen have been able to understand. This previously very sexually active male, who at one point dated both men and women with equal fervor, can be reached at the following number and e-mail address. Our political cartoonist was gracious enough to draw a full-bodied likeness. The 'uncensored' version is available on our website. Just click on the 'getNarutolaid' tab and select the 'full-monty' link. (18+ please).

* * *

><p>IN OTHER NEWS - <em>If you think you didn't care about Nara's stuff, you REALLY won't care about this. Weekly column by <strong>Uzumaki Naruto<strong>_

As a follow-up to our story two weeks ago on the Uchiha's cat, sources close to Uchiha Sasuke asked him about the reported dissatisfaction of his cat. His reported response was "Hn." This is a word that some say the Uchiha learned while meditating in Tibet trying to reach enlightenment. Another source claims it was actually a word from ancient Etruscan, a language that the Uchiha sometimes uses to mystify adversaries in business dealings. A third theory is simply that he is too much of an egotistical ass to be bothered with giving a proper response, but the source of that theory could not be verified.

* * *

><p>I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE -<em> Seriously, people. If you don't know what you're doing sexually, can you please just keep it in your own bedrooms? Weekly column by <strong>Hyuuga Hinata<strong>_

While most neighbors complain if disturbances get too loud, we all know that - every once in a while - it's pretty hot to hear someone getting it on through the walls of your bedroom late at night. A middle-aged couple called me recently to complain about the lack of any noise what-so-ever coming from their previously vocal blond neighbor's apartment. "I mean... it was bad when it was EVERY night. The wife and I both work, so it was a bit exhausting at one point. But having a little extra stimulation for me and the missus was enjoyable occasionally. With the absence of any sort of 'neighborly activity' recently, we've had to resort to actually _renting_ porn when we want a little 'side action.' We moved into this apartment with a certain set of expectations, having a young, sexually active single male living next door. If this dearth of bedroom activity continues, we might be forced to demand compensation for our porn rental fees from him. I mean... it's been over a year. Enough is enough."

* * *

><p>DUMBASS OF THE DAY - <em>Because some people are just so dumb, they really do deserve an award for it. Weekly award by <strong>Inuzuka Kiba<strong>_

The co-owner of a certain periodical actually trusted his best friend and long-time partner in crime to do the final editing of the edition that just _happened_ to be coming out on his birthday. Not only did this dumbass not check the content, but he actually bought the excuse that the staff had all been late with their deadlines, and since he was the only one who made his, he was allowed to go home early and take the rest of the evening off. Dude - I can't believe you fell for that! When do we EVER let you leave before the paper goes live? The admin password has been changed and will remain locked until the next edition is ready, so there is no way you can take this down, bra. It's already printed and out for distribution. YOU, my man, are our dumbass of the day.

* * *

><p>BAD SHIT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU - <em>But at least now you know. Weekly horoscope by <strong>Aburame Shino<strong>_

While normally I favor the Japanese Zodiac for my predictions, I had a special premonition that Libras, particularly those born on October 10th, have a very good chance of getting laid in the near future. These air element people should make themselves open to this possibility. And the possibility of significant intervention by friends and co-workers to facilitate said 'laying'. All non-October 10th birthdays and non-Libra's are called to action on this front. Why? Because it is your celestial mandate. And Karma rewards her servants. Remember, good or bad deeds come back on you times three. And three times a single lay equals an orgy. Karma is a kind mistress. Let us all serve her and gain our just reward.

* * *

><p>SPORTS NEWS! - <em>Sports are a celebration of endless youth! Join me in reveling in them! Weekly column by <strong>Rock Lee!<strong>_

Local, blond media mogul claims recent fitness obsession is all about increased health! However, an exclusive interview with Maito Gai, the well-respected owner of the gym where our sexually repressed friend has been working out, indicates that the type of activities that the local man has been engaging in seemed more suited to burning off sexual frustration rather than training for any particular fitness goal! The passion of youth! Thwarted by social reclusiveness! Fortunately, our resident political cartoonist had volunteered to help our poor friend out by tying him up to his bed and - [sorry... I have been told that the internet is once again full! I will have more for you next week! On something equally thrilling!]

* * *

><p>-xXx-<p>

**October 10th, noon, Ichiraku Ramen Restaurant**

Naruto was currently not speaking to any of his colleagues at _The Daily Ramen_, giving him a rare lunch free to spend with Sakura.

"So, Naruto," Sakura said, watching her blond friend slurping the ramen from his favorite restaurant. Today he was wearing a T-shirt that said: _Sometimes_ _I question my sanity...occasionally, it replies_. "What did you think about meeting the Uchiha brothers this week?"

Naruto paused in his slurping, not fooled at all by the seemingly innocent tone in Sakura's voice. She internally sighed. With the amount of time she spent around her poker-faced, stoic bosses, you'd think she'd have developed better skills at this by now.

"Itachi's hot. His brother's an ass. Why?" Naruto said, resuming his eating in a futile hope to end this discussion topic.

"Soooo... you don't think Sasuke's hot?" Sakura found it amusing that Naruto wouldn't even say his name. Or the way his hand gripped the chopsticks slightly tighter at her second question. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning.

Naruto put his chopsticks into the container with slightly more force than was absolutely necessary. "Well, given that he looks like a younger version of Itachi, I guess sort of. If you could get past his obnoxious personality. Which I _can't_. If you think in even the smallest inactive part of your brain that I am going to apologize to him, then you have definitely been working too long on the Dark Side. They guy is an arrogant jack-ass. Even Itachi wasn't mad at what I wrote." In fact, Itachi had actually sort of... snickered... when Naruto has shown him an advance copy of the column out of courtesy. Itachi had gotten a bit of an evil glint in his eye that had made Naruto slightly nervous, but had simply nodded his assent to the short piece. Of course, it was unlikely that Sasuke would be terribly annoyed about what Naruto wrote, given that the ENTIRE REST OF THE PAPER had been focused on making fun of Naruto's lack of a sex life. And his addiction to Ramen, but... mostly just his lack of sex. Literally, all over the paper. Naruto's phone had been blowing up all day with men and women volunteering to help him out with his 'little problem.' Not in small part due to Sai's full frontal drawing.

He wondered if he had waited too long to use 'temporary insanity' as an excuse for a mass homicide at the office.

Naruto's phone buzzed again. He glanced at the message, rolled his eyes, then slammed the phone back down muttering something about getting a discount for buying coffins in bulk.

"Hmmmm," Sakura made a non-committal sound. It wasn't like she disagreed with Naruto's assessment of Sasuke. But... there was no denying the chemistry that had practically incinerated Itachi's office when Sasuke had walked in to find Naruto there. Her toes had curled at the heat between those two. And she wasn't even _into _watching the way Hinata was. But she was definitely coming around on that view after the encounter between them she had witnessed.

Observing the way Naruto's jaw was currently clenched in a mulish line, however, she knew she had to circle around on this one, rather than going head-on. When Naruto dug his heels in, it was almost impossible to convince him of anything.

"So... what are you doing for your birthday? Anyone special taking you out?" Sakura changed the subject. She was pretty sure she would have received at least seven ecstatic phone calls if Naruto had actually started dating anyone, but it never hurt to double-check.

"Assuming I don't go down to the office and commit mass murder, the guys are taking me out clubbing for my birthday tonight. Just to blow off some steam. Nothing too crazy, though."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Just don't do anything stupid. Where are you going? If I finish work in time, I might try to swing by."

"Going to slum it with your old friends, eh?"

Sakura launched a mushroom at him with her soup spoon. "Just because I learned how to hold my tongue and play nice doesn't mean I still don't know how to have fun."

Naruto laughed. "Haha, ok, fine. We're going to the Rasengan Club. I'm having dinner with my parents first, though. So we won't really get there until around ten."

"Has your mom gotten over your success with the newspaper yet?"

"Sort of," Naruto said. "She says she's still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Shika and me to end up in jail for slander or defamation of character or something. Shika tried explaining how this type of thing is protected, and we only go for public figures, and blah, blah, but... you know mom."

Sakura laughed. "She's just embarrassed because everyone knows that she's the one that you got your sense of humor from."

Naruto grinned. "Absolutely. Really, it's my dad who should be embarrassed. But he's cool with it."

Having gotten the information she needed, Sakura stood and brushed a kiss across his cheek. "Well, happy birthday, Naruto. I need to get back to the office, but hopefully I will see you later tonight."

_Naruto is not seeing anyone. Check._

_Naruto will be out at a club tonight. Check._

Now she needed to tell Itachi. She had no idea if there was any force on earth that could get Sasuke to go to a club, but if anyone could, it would be Itachi. Sakura knew her limits. This feat was beyond her. She pulled out her phone and began to text as she walked briskly back to her office.

-xXx

**October 10th, 7pm, Uchiha Financial Holdings Headquarters**

Itachi flicked his wrist and a shiny object sailed through the air directly towards Sasuke's face. Reflexively, Sasuke caught it. It was what appeared to be a locker key.

Sasuke raised a perfectly arched eyebrow in enquiry.

"It is the key to your locker at Top Fitness gym," Itachi said, leaning back and folding his hands calmly on his desk.

"And when will I have time to go to a gym? My apartment building as a perfectly functional and - more importantly - completely _private_ exercise facility."

Itachi shrugged. "I know you used to enjoy swimming when you were on the college swim team. This facility has an Olympic-sized pool, and even a deep-well diving pool. Membership is exclusive, and children are only allowed in the pool between the hours of two and six pm." Itachi knew he had Sasuke with his last comment. Nothing irritated the raven more than to be doing his laps (in a pool that was already undersized) and have a toddler in a floaty drift into the lap lane while their caretaker cooed and talked about how cute they were. Children were cute if they were your own, he supposed. Everyone else's were just annoying.

"Hn," Sasuke said noncommittally, eyeing the key.

"Locker number 666," Itachi supplied helpfully.

"Coming from you, that is a very fitting number, nii-san."

But Sasuke slid the key into his pocket anyway, turning to look out the window at the city lights spread out below them as the sun had started to set. It would be good to swim again in a proper pool. And he was _not _thinking about anyone he might happen to run into while there. A small smirk appeared on his lips. Unknown to him, it was mirrored on the lips of his older brother, who could see Sasuke's reflection in the glass.

"We're going out tonight," Itachi said, as though this were somehow a common occurrence.

"Actually, I was thinking of going for a swim. Since you so kindly paid for my membership."

"You can do that tomorrow. Tonight we are going clubbing."

Sasuke turned slowly. "In what universe do you and I ever go _clubbing_?"

"Some of my friends from college called. I need a designated driver."

"Isn't that what we have a _hired _driver to handle?"

"Well, I still have those pictures I took of you when you got drunk at Shisui's New Year's party and went skinny dipping in the lake at the compound. I'd hate - in my incapacitated state - to accidentally send those to... say... Karin."

Sasuke's ex. Sasuke's nearly _stalker _ex from high school. While Sasuke was still trying to deny that he was gay.

"So, what club am I meeting you at?"

Itachi smirked. "Rasengan. At 11:30."

"I hate you."

"I love you, too, Otouto," Itachi said. "By the way, have you seen the latest edition of the _Daily Ramen_?"

-xXx-

**October 10th, 10pm, Rasengan Club**

Naruto had somehow managed to refrain from killing his friends and they assembled in their favorite club to celebrate his birthday. "Do you have any idea how many obscene phone calls I received today? I had to change my number. And my e-mail address. Which I will NOT be giving any of you, by the way."

Shikamaru shrugged, sipping his beer. "You could have just invited a few of the 'admirers' down here and had a guaranteed good evening."

"You guys already embarrassed me enough with the stupid paper this morning. I don't need to drag it out any further. And Sai, don't think I'm letting you off the hook for that drawing. No matter what Shika says, you are NOT getting paid for that."

Sai simply smiled and sipped his beer. "Sometimes art is its own reward."

"Here. Put this on," Hinata said grinning, thrusting a T-shirt into his hands. "It's for your birthday!"

Naruto held up the T-shirt to see the lettering on it. "Um... there is no way in hell I am going to wear this, Hinata." The T-shirt was a dark blue, with large white letters that read: _Birthday boy - Spank me._

Sakura snickered, but agreed with Naruto. "Hinata, you're never going to get him to wear _that_."

Hinata just smiled. "Bartender - we need another drink down here!"

Kiba laughed. "Sakura, you should know better than that. Hinata _always_ gets Naruto to do what she wants."

"Says the pot to the kettle. When was the last time you denied Hinata anything?" Naruto said to Kiba, grinning at his glare. "But seriously, no way. You guys always get me drunk and make me do stupid shit on my birthday. There is no way I'm getting talked into stuff this year."

Shino simply smiled. He already knew the ridiculousness of that statement. He felt no need to voice it aloud.

. . . .

**October 10th, 11:30pm Rasengan club**

Sakura looked up to see Itachi and a very annoyed-looking Sasuke walk in. She was glad she hadn't had more than one beer, because seeing her bosses dressed in club clothes rather than their formal suits was enough to give her nearly a heart attack. Not wanting to draw Naruto's attention too soon to the new arrivals, she slipped off her stool and went over to meet them.

Sasuke's eyebrows went up as he saw her, clearly not expecting her to be here, but Itachi just greeted her casually. "It's really packed tonight," Sakura offered. "But they've got a good DJ, and the drinks are decent. There are some tables over there if you prefer to sit?"

Itachi and Sasuke followed where she had pointed, further down the wall where the bar was. Sakura almost laughed at all the heads that turned to follow the movement of the two unbelievably attractive men as they took their seats, with more than a few jealous and curious glances shot her way. She sighed, knowing that what they were thinking was, unfortunately, not the case.

They had just reached an empty table when Hinata appeared, laughter spilling from her lips. "You owe me fifty bucks, Sakura. I told you I'd get him to wear it," Hinata pointed to where Naruto was standing by the bar, laughter and alcohol giving his tan cheeks a slightly flushed look. He was now sporting his new T-shirt, and already had several people offering to take him up on what the shirt was offering. Starting with Sai. Naruto stumbled slightly as he shoved the raven back, Kiba nearly howling with laughter. Lee had already passed out at the bar, and was snoring lightly.

Sasuke followed the girls' gaze and his eyes froze slightly at seeing Naruto before they snapped back suspiciously to Itachi.

"Where are the _friends_ that you said would be meeting you here today?"

Itachi shrugged, "Sakura's a friend. The others will likely show at some point. I'll go get us some drinks."

"I'm leaving," Sasuke said, standing. He had known from the beginning that his brother was trying to orchestrate something. Whether it was to try to get Sasuke drunk in front of the staff of the Daily Ramen so he could further be humiliated, or to try to set up yet another confrontation between him and Naruto, Sasuke wasn't going to play along.

Itachi pulled out his iPhone, idly flicking through the photos. "Given that _The Daily Ramen_ doesn't seem to have any problems with nudity, I wonder how much they'd offer for the photographs from last New Year's."

Sasuke froze mid stride, then abruptly turned and slammed himself down in an empty chair next to Sakura. "Fine. But I'm not drinking anything other than water. And I'm not talking to that idiot."

Itachi looked at Sasuke with mock innocence. "Given that you are my designated driver, I should hope you are not going to drink. And you can speak with whomever you choose this evening."

Itachi looked up and nodded to three people who were making their way towards him. Sasuke turned to see Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan. The three always were together. He'd walked in on Yahiko and Konan last New Year's in one of the guest bedrooms. And Nagato and Yahiko at Itachi's birthday, in the library. He'd given up trying to understand the dynamics of their relationship, but it seemed to work for them.

Konan bent down and kissed Itachi's cheek. As she turned to do the same to Sasuke, he froze her with a glare. She laughed with a low chuckle. "Just as prickly as always. Itachi, when are you going to get this little brother of yours laid. He needs it in the worst possible way."

Itachi slid a glace over to where Naruto was, while Sasuke was busy glaring at Konan. "Oh, you never know. I'm sure one day he'll meet someone who will thaw that ice of his out."

Sakura had to take a drink of her beer to hide the grin that threatened to over-take her face. Konan looked at her with interest. "You're new."

"This is Sakura - she's our new head of PR," Itachi said. "Sakura, these are some old friends of mine from school - Konan, Yahiko and Nagato."

Sakura nodded politely at them, feeling a bit shocked as Konan leaned down and kissed her cheek as she had done with Itachi. Sakura had really only dated men before, but she felt a blush creep along her cheekbones and the intimate gesture. Yahiko smirked at her knowingly. It figured that all of Itachi's friends would be this hot.

"Sakura has some interesting friends working in the local media," Itachi said, again glancing over to where the Naruto and his friends were talking.

Sasuke's low growl had Konan's eyes sparkling. Sakura wondered how much Itachi had already told them about their little scheme.

"I'll go get us some drinks," Nagato said, heading over to the bar.

The song changed and a surge of people started to shift away from the bar to dance. Sakura recognized it as one of the typical hip hop songs that basically described in graphic detail two people pretty much having sex on the dance floor. Lots of couples were out there already miming out some of the actions that the song suggested. She could hear Kiba's shout from across the bar, and her eyes immediately snapped over to find Hinata pulling a laughing and stumbling Naruto to dance with her.

"Oh, god. Here we go again," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

Despite his best efforts to not do so, Sasuke turned to see what she was looking at. At first it just looked like Naruto was dancing with the pretty dark-haired girl in basically the same way that everyone else was, their bodies close but not quite touching as their hips moved in rhythm together provocatively. But slowly things started to change.

The dark haired girl got significantly more explicit with the actions she was miming out. She acted out binding Naruto's wrists over his head, cinching her hands as though tightening cuffs. Naruto kept his hands above his head as though they were secured there in reality. The girl then grabbed his shoulder, giving him a rough shove to turn him around. Whether acting or not, he complied with the physical order, smirking over his shoulder at her. She then pretended to coil an imaginary whip, giggling as he wiggled his ass at her in taunting. Trying to look stern, she then raised her arm over her head, bringing it down in a lashing motion. Staying in character, Naruto arched back as though struck.

"That's it, Hinata. Whip the shit out of him!" Kiba laughed drunkenly while Shino had his iPhone out recording it for later blackmail.

A growing group of dancers were watching in aroused amusement as the two continued their little performance of a live BDSM session.

Itachi slanted a questioning glance at Sakura, wondering if she had been mistaken about Naruto's status as single.

"Oh, that's just Hinata. She's like... Naruto's sister," Sakura said, just as Hinata grabbed Naruto's hair in her fist and yanked it back hard. They could see Naruto's shoulders shaking with laughter. She sucked on her index finger, then slid it down her throat to her rather impressive cleavage.

"That's an interesting way for '_siblings_' to act with each other," Sasuke said acidly.

"Hn. Looks like we've been doing it all wrong, Otouto," Itachi said, smirking as Sasuke choked on his water.

"Well, it started a few years ago at Hinata's birthday party. Naruto was invited as sort of a friend-of-a-friend. Hinata's cousin was giving her a hard time about being such a wall flower at her own party. Neji was being a little harsh about it, even though really he just wanted her to go out and meet people. Naruto overheard and got mad, so he introduced himself to her and asked her to dance. Evidently he asked her if she wanted to give her cousin a bit of a shock by dancing close with him, promising that he was already dating someone and wouldn't hit on her. Hinata started off a little tentatively, but by the end of the song the entire room was whispering and staring at them. I guess Hinata got a bit addicted to the attention. They do this whenever we go out**."**

Hinata had dropped to her knees in front of Naruto (who was laughing almost hysterically at this point) and was now miming out -

"Oh, my _god_," Sakura said, her cheeks pinkening. "Looks like they've added to the routine."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "She seems to be pretty into it."

Sakura snapped her eyes from the spectacle her two friends were making in the middle of the club and looked over to gauge Sasuke's expression. He looked decidedly annoyed. "Oh, no. Hinata is completely in love with Kiba," she said, pointing to the attractive man with shaggy, brown hair was watching her in rapt attention, drool practically running down his chin. "Half of this performance is to try to get him to finally get off his ass and make a move on her."

"And Naruto?" Itachi asked, his eyes hooded slightly, but the amusement showing through as he took in his little brother's disgruntled expression and asked the question he knew Sasuke had too much pride to voice.

"Naruto?" Sakura laughed. "No, unfortunately Hinata is NOT his type. She's way too sweet. Naruto definitely likes -" Sakura had glanced over toward the 'couple' again as the song was drawing to an end. Hinata had stood and was brushing her knees off. But it was the man who had come up behind Naruto that made all the color drain from her face. "Oh, no. Not now. Kiba!" Sakura shouted to him from across the room, but he appeared to be heading in the opposite direction towards the men's room and didn't hear her. Shino and Shikamaru were also nowhere to be seen.

Ignoring the startled looks from her two bosses and their friends, Sakura leapt to her feet and started frantically making her way through the crowd to get to Naruto.

. . . . . .. . . . .

Naruto was having fun.

It was nice to just be out with his friends and cut loose. His head was fuzzy with drink, but he had stopped in time to avoid feeling sick, having learned that lesson in the past. He had been really focused on work and really not doing much outside of that for over a year. But he had good friends, even though he occasionally wanted to kill them. And tonight was about just being with his friends and blowing off some steam. He had no intention of hooking up tonight, even though he knew his friends were hoping he'd find someone. He wasn't ready. And more importantly, he wasn't interested. The only one who had even remotely registered on his radar was... _not _going to happen.

But he enjoyed the role playing that he did with Hinata. It was nice to feel sexy and know he wouldn't be obligated to actually have sex with anyone. And he knew the thrill that Hinata got from being the center of attention and doing something her family would be scandalized about. Having grown up so restricted, cloistered and shy, this was still a novel and heady feeling for her. And she knew it was safe with Naruto. It was just a performance, and he would never take advantage of her, or let anyone else get too close.

Naruto watched her stand, her face flushed and her eyes twinkling as she looked over to see if Kiba was still watching her. Kiba knew the score between Naruto and Hinata, so he didn't get jealous. Or at least, not in the sense that he thought there was anything going on. It was true that he wished he was the one out there dancing with her. But it was also true that he understood that - if it were him and not Naruto - it wouldn't be an act. And as much as Hinata enjoyed making fun of others involved in PDA, she was private about her own personal life.

Naruto winked at Kiba, who responded with an eye roll before turning and heading to the men's room. The show was over. Shikamaru and Shino had drifted off with others to dance as the night was still going strong.

Hinata opened her mouth to say something to him, but froze with an expression of almost horror on her face just as Naruto felt a familiar touch slide over his hip and around to the front of his hard, flat stomach. The scent of an achingly familiar cologne hit is senses, causing his whole body to seize up in almost instant arousal. He didn't need to hear the low, rough voice to know who it was standing behind him.

"Miss me? Sorry it took me so long... I didn't realize I was keeping you waiting until I saw your paper this morning."

The voice alone had Naruto's cock standing at full attention. "Sasori," Naruto breathed, closing his eyes as he felt the man press against him, a hand sliding up over Naruto's throat. The alcohol seemed to amplify the lust that was swirling through him, shutting down his thought processes even though a part of his brain was screaming at him to step away and break the contact.

"What are you doing here? H-He doesn't want to s-see you anymore!" Hinata said fiercely, her childhood stammer reappearing, showing just how upset she was.

Sasori raised a brow, smirking. "I don't see him pulling away, do you? Besides, your friends made it clear he needed me. Didn't you think I'd see your paper? You still haven't been able to move on, have you, Naruto. I knew you couldn't really walk away from what we had."

It had been _so long_. Naruto drew a shuddering breath as he felt his lover's hand tighten around his jaw, turning his head to face him. _Stop this, _the sane part of Naruto's mind shouted, reminding him of how bad things had gotten with Sasori. How controlling Sasori had become, Sasori's refusal to walk away from the drugs he had started using. Then selling. All the reasons that Naruto had known it had to be over.

But no one else had ever made him feel the way Sasori did. If Naruto had been sober, he would have been able to stop himself. But with all his resistance gone, all Naruto felt was the overwhelming lust that pounded through him at the memories that the scent and sound of his lover evoked.

Before he could even think, Naruto had spun around, slamming Sasori hard against the wall, his forearm braced across the redhead's collar bone. Then their mouths were fused together, and Naruto was drowning. He didn't care who was watching. He didn't care that this was an enormous mistake. His lips and teeth scraped a path down Sasori's throat, and the brown eyes glowed in triumph as Hinata watched on in horror. This was the last thing any of them wanted, Naruto getting drawn back into the relationship that had almost destroyed him.

"Naruto, stop! This isn't what you want!"

Sasori laughed, the sound low sensual. "It's _exactly_ what he wants. Why do you think he's never even looked at anyone else in the past year? I know what he really likes."

Sasori dug his nails into the back of Naruto's shoulders as Naruto pressed harder against him. "Oh, god," Naruto breathed out, past the point of thinking.

But hands were pulling him away. "Naruto, stop!"

Hinata's gentle pull was replaced by one much more forceful, and Naruto found himself torn away from the man he was about ten seconds away from fucking into the wall in a club full of curious onlookers.

"Hinata, take Naruto home and stay with him until he sobers up. Whatever you do, don't let him leave," Sakura said, glaring at the undeniably attractive brunette in front of her.

"The fuck, Sakura? I don't need a babysitter. I just... lost my head for a second, there," Naruto said, his voice still rough with lust. But his mind was clearing as he looked at the arrogant face of his ex.

"It's only a matter of time, Naruto. No one else can make you feel the way I do. I know your dark side... what makes you scream in pleasure. There will never be anyone else."

Naruto shuddered at the man's words, knowing they might well be true. "Maybe. Maybe I won't ever find anyone else. But that doesn't mean I'll get back together with you. I don't need to be with someone to be happy."

Hinata pulled on Naruto's arm, and he took another stumbling step away from the man that was drawing him like iron filings to a magnet.

Sasori's dark smile grew. "All I had to do was touch you once, and you were ready to fuck me right here. Don't kid yourself, you belong to me. You'll never-"

His words were cut off as Sakura's fist caught him squarely in the jaw. "He's not yours, you asshole. The only reason Naruto didn't knock you flat on your ass was because he's drunk, and you know it! That's why you waited so late in the evening to make your move."

Kiba had finally returned and was now pulling Sakura back. Sasori ran his fingers along his lip, checking for blood. It sucked that you couldn't hit a girl back. His fist was aching to. He watched as Hinata led the blond away. But he could get her back verbally. "It doesn't matter what you do. Naruto knows what he wants," with that, Sasori turned and left in the other direction.

. . . .

Itachi and Sasuke had followed Sakura over, concerned about the look of panic on her face.

They had seen the transformation of Naruto's expression go from light-hearted and joking with Hinata to an almost feral look of lust at the touch of the red-headed man. Sasuke felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle when Naruto had turned and slammed the man who was clearly an ex-lover of his into the wall, the blue eyes almost black with lust and aggression. If Sasuke had thought the blond was somewhat attractive before, seeing that look on his face had amplified the attraction a thousand-fold.

The words that the red-head had taunted Naruto with made Sasuke's eyes narrow. He thought Naruto would never be attracted to anyone else. _Oh, really? _

Naruto was shoved towards Sasuke as Hinata tried to get him as fast as possible away from Sasori and out of the club. Sasuke smirked at the glazed look on Naruto's face. "Bad break-up?"

Naruto looked at him, and their gazes locked for a moment. Slowly, an answering smirk appeared on Naruto's face. But unlike Naruto's usual expressions, it flashed again with the dark lust that he had just seen directed at the red-head. A mutual awareness passed between them.

"Bastard," Naruto said, his voice low and husky. Taunting.

"Naruto, come on. Let's get you home," Hinata said, breaking the moment. Naruto let himself be led out, but he looked back over his shoulder just as they reached the exit. Sasuke was still looking at him, the smirk still playing on his face. He raised a single black eyebrow, as though issuing a challenge. Naruto grinned, then left, allowing Hinata to hail them a cab and see him home.

At least he was no longer thinking of Sasori. Naruto smiled darkly. Someone else had finally captured his interest.

-xXx-

_To be continued._

I know a lot of you were hoping for me to finally write a little GaaNaruGaa action. Because you know I want to. I really do. But the problem is, I actually like Gaara better than Sasuke, so if Naruto ever actually hooked up with Gaara, then Sasuke would be SOL as far as I'm concerned. I just can't break Gaara's heart. So... yeah, it was Sasori. But hey, he's still freaking hot. When he's not playing with his puppets.

Thanks to Kyuubi-Insomniac for Naruto's T-shirt in the first scene.


	5. Chapter 5 - Interested

**Summary:**

Naruto runs an underground newspaper called 'The Daily Ramen', focused on poking fun at the fragile egos of the rich and famous. How does Sasuke respond when he moves to town and gets in Naruto's crosshairs? Not particularly well. Sasuke x Naruto (Yaoi boy x boy)

**Warning:** Sexual tension boy x boy and dirty thoughts.

**Author's note:** Sorry this is later than usual. Between just life stuff messing with me, I also somehow talked myself into thinking writing 4 fics at the same time was a good idea. Ummmm? Not sure what I was doing with my brain. And the larger issue is that Naruto and Sasuke are not currently having sex in ANY of the chapters I am working on. How is that even possible? Clearly I fail as an author at my smut planning. LOL. One of these boys just needs to hurry up and jump the other one in at least ONE of my fics soon. Soooooooon.

-xXx-

* * *

><p><strong>The Daily Ramen, October 24<strong>

OUR DUMB WORLD_ - Things that are going on in other places that you couldn't care less about. Weekly column by **Nara Shikamaru**_

Another US congressman was embroiled in yet another a sex scandal this week involving e-mailed photos of his penis and sexting with a young intern. When asked to speculate about what could possibly motivate the successful, seemingly happily married politician to commit such an act, a world-renown behavioral psychologist explained. "I think he was hoping to get laid." Expounding on this revolutionary perspective, she explained. "My hypothesis is that he was hoping to get the attention, sexually, of a younger and generally hotter partner than what he would have been able to attract if he were employed as, say, a check-out clerk rather than a senator." When asked to confirm whether or not he was hoping to receive sexual favors in return for sending the photo of his crotch to the young intern, the senator merely glanced at his wife, who was smiling frigidly, and said he was not able to comment at this time.

* * *

><p>IN OTHER NEWS - <em>If you think you didn't care about Nara's stuff, you REALLY won't care about this. Weekly column by <strong>Uzumaki Naruto<strong>_

Local college student finds heavy course load is cutting into his core gaming and jacking-off time. Vows to take fewer classes next semester, and to schedule them for when his roommate will be gone so he and his right hand can have some 'quality time' until he is able to score a girlfriend. Which, given his current gaming obsession, is not likely to happen any time soon.

In other news, the entire staff of the Daily Ramen might want to check their blood arsenic levels. In their foolish naiveté, they continued to mooch coffee every damn day off a certain friend who they decided to throw under the bus last week. Just so you all know, I HAVE CHANGED MY NUBMER AND MY EMAIL ADDRESS and Sai is no longer allowed to post anything without my written approval REGARDLESS of what that asshole partner of mine says.

* * *

><p>I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE -<em> Seriously, people. If you don't know what you're doing sexually, can you please just keep it in your own bedrooms? Weekly column by <strong>Hyuuga Hinata<strong>_

The 1950's are dead, people. Time to move on and spare the rest of us your nauseating displays of ownership over each other through your tacky matching sweaters. There is a couple that I keep seeing down at the park. They do the usual cute, innocent PDA things like holding hands while taking walks and feeding each other crackers on the park bench. I don't have too much of a problem with that (although, *yawn*, are they eighty or something?) but the matching sweater thing really bothers me. If you want to show possession, I think a D/s collar does that in a much more interesting way. Then, at least, the matching sweaters could be viewed as a kink, and move their rating up from a 1 to at least a 6.

* * *

><p>DUMBASS OF THE DAY - <em>Because some people are just so dumb, they really do deserve an award for it. Weekly award by <strong>Inuzuka Kiba<strong>_

Asshole neighbors were shocked when area teens egged their home. Known for being the most annoying human beings ever to live on Putnam St, a middle aged couple found themselves the target of minor vandalism. When filling out the police report, they said they had no idea why anyone would have done this. Which was fucking hilarious to their neighbors, because these guys routinely call the cops whenever anyone on their block has a party (even children's birthday parties) to complain about the noise. They ask their elderly neighbor to shovel their sidewalk, because 'he is retired and should make himself useful to those who are still productive in society'. They also are known for leaving notes on their neighbors' doors if the trash cans are not put back into the garages within two hours of trash collection. They even filed a charge of child abuse to a local family who allowed their children to play with sparklers on the 4th of July. Anyone who didn't see some type of retribution coming is truly deserving of a Dumbass of the Day award. A local teen who preferred to remain anonymous said the couple should watch their tires next time they hand out fucking apples on Halloween.

* * *

><p>BAD SHIT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU - <em>But at least now you know. Weekly horoscope by <strong>Aburame Shino<strong>_

No sex for rabbits this week. I repeat: Rabbits will NOT be having sex. Everyone else is invited to an all-year orgy at our political cartoonist's studio. Though you will have to sign a waiver at the door that any nudity at said orgy will be fair game to be captured on paper by said artist.

* * *

><p>SPORTS NEWS! - <em>Sports are a celebration of endless youth! Join me in reveling in them! Weekly column by <strong>Rock Lee!<strong>_

A mega ultra-super extreme triathlon has been announced! Ironmen are now officially pussies! For the first time ever, there will be a mega ultra-super extreme triathlon held in Hawaii! Contestants will begin by swimming the Pacific to Anchorage, Alaska, then bicycling down to LA, then across to New York, and finally running 17 marathons in a row! Two contestants have already announced they will be running barefoot! Local hospitals standing by to perform autopsies on contestants to understand what drives these lunatics! I, myself, will be... too busy... unfortunately... to participate... doing... um... things... but otherwise I would TOTALLY DO THIS!

* * *

><p>Naruto had spent Saturday recuperating from a massive hangover, his phone blessedly silent since no one had his new number yet except his parents. Normally, he would have gone to the gym, but instead he lay on his couch, drinking lemonade and watching old Bruce Lee movies.<p>

He was midway through Enter the Dragon when there was a soft knock on his door. "It's open," Naruto said, feeling too lazy and dehydrated to get off the couch.

The door pushed open and Uzumaki Kushina walked in carrying a large jug of what Naruto assumed correctly was ginger lemonade.

Naruto grinned at her, lifting his half-full glass of the same liquid in a salute. "See? I learned from the best."

Kushina smiled, grabbing a clean glass from the kitchen.

"Push over a bit," she said, swatting at his legs that were stretched over the entire length of the sofa. Obediently, Naruto curled his legs up, making space for her to sit, then stretched them back out over her lap. She glanced at the screen, where a Bruce Lee was frozen in midair in a very badass looking flying sidekick. "Ooooh, Enter the Dragon. My favorite!" She reached over and grabbed the remote, pressing play.

They sipped lemonade and kept a running commentary on the various fight scenes, which moves were fake and which were real. No one knew kung fu movies like his mom. Naruto grinned, relaxing into the familiar feel of how they used to spend most evenings when he was growing up.

"So, Shika called me this morning," Kushina finally said, gauging Naruto's reaction from the corner of her eye.

"That Judas. Did you see the latest edition of the paper?"

Kushina snorted. "And you were somehow surprised? Remember what you did to Shika in the first year of the paper on _his_ birthday?"

Naruto sighed blissfully at the memory. "Yeah... that was fucking _awesome_."

Kushina smacked him over his head. "Language. Anyway, what comes around goes around. You know that."

Naruto shrugged, long since over his annoyance about the whole thing. But he'd let his friends suffer a bit more worrying about it. It was the principle of the thing, after all.

"That actually wasn't why he called me, though," Kushina said, turning now and fully facing her son. "He said that Sasori showed up at your birthday party last night."

Naruto blinked, honestly having completely forgotten about Sasori. "Yeah... well, we ran into each other, but it was no big deal."

Kushina narrowed her eyes at her son, and Naruto was relieved that he wasn't currently trying to hide anything. Once Kushina got that look, there was no way to keep her from digging out every last strand of truth.

"No big deal? From the boy who has spent basically the past year as a social hermit since he couldn't forget about his ex-boyfriend enough to move on to even _casual_ dating?"

Naruto shrugged. "Like you said. It's been more than a year. It's over. I honestly wasn't even thinking about it this morning."

A wicked grin suddenly broke out over Kushina's face. "You've met someone new, haven't you?"

_Oh, fuck,_ Naruto said, quickly clearing his mind of all mental images of Sasuke in case his mother actually could read his mind the way he sometimes feared as a child. He wasn't sure what he really felt about Sasuke at this point beyond anger combined with strong physical attraction, and he didn't want to discuss _that_ with his mother. _Yeah, mom. There's a guy I sort of hate but also sort of want to have extremely dirty, violent sex with. _Nope. Not talking about that. Naruto didn't even really want to admit that to himself. Except for the hate part. That part was safe enough. The part that dealt with his release of over a year's worth of sexual repression was not something he chose to think about consciously. Except maybe in the shower this morning. But that was just one time.

He was sure it was an aberration.

"Not really," Naruto said, trying to answer his mother's question without giving away his thoughts. "Can't someone just be ready to move on without anyone in particular in mind?"

Kushina's grin spread further. "_Someone_, yes. _You,_ no. But it's ok. You don't have to tell me anything, yet. It's probably early days and meeting the parents is always a big step. I don't know who they are, but I like them already."

Naruto raised an eyebrow in question, surprised he was being let off the hook so easily. Kushina continued, "Anyone who can make you forget Sasori is already on my good side. Can you just tell me... is it a boy or a girl?"

Naruto rolled his eyes at how much his mother sounded like a kid in a candy store. "Boy. But I don't like him."

Kushina put her fist in the air in victory. "Yes! I told Minato you were going to end up with a boy. Now your father owes me twenty bucks."

"I'm, not _ending up_ with anyone, Mom. We've barely talked. Honestly, he's kind of an ass."

Kushina laughed confidently. "Oh, honey. It won't matter. You never did like overly nice men or women. You fill that role yourself in a relationship and you need someone to balance you out. Sort of like your father and I."

"Yeah, Dad's the nice one. You're the crazy one," Naruto grinned as his mother cuffed him affectionately over the head, not disputing the characterization.

"Yeah, well, don't get overly excited about it," Naruto said, not sure why his mom was reading as much into this as she was. "Really, he's just some guy that pisses me off. The last thing I need is Hinata and the guys trying to orchestrate a relationship between us. They've been all up in my business with anything having to do with dating since I broke it off with Sasori."

Kushina cocked her head to the side, deciding that - given the typical over-enthusiasm with which Naruto's friends approached sensitive issues - her son was probably making the right call by not discussing it with them. Of course, he was crazy if he thought he would actually be _successful_ at hiding anything from them, but at least he was trying. And if he needed to be in denial with himself for a bit while his mind got used to the idea of being attracted to someone other than Sasori, then who was she to interfere?

She sighed contentedly as they put in _The Big Boss_, her second favorite Bruce Lee film. For the first time in over a year, she was pretty sure Naruto was really going to be ok.

-xXx-

Sasuke was _not_ hoping to run into Naruto. While the blond might be attractive, he was completely annoying.

If Sasuke happened to go every evening to the gym that he had been told Naruto frequented, or walk past the building where the Daily Ramen was headquartered conveniently two blocks from where he lived, it was purely coincidence. Sasuke just didn't have to travel much this week and wanted to take advantage of the gym membership Itachi had bought for him.

And he may or may not have overheard Sakura telling Itachi about how she and Naruto used to always meet at a little ramen stand a block or two away from their office, since that was Naruto's favorite place to eat.

The fact that Sasuke found himself buying lunch there one day was simply that he was taking a local's advice on where to eat lunch close to his office.

He didn't really want to talk to Naruto, exactly. Though he did enjoy the slight rush that he got by provoking the young journalist. Seeing the way the man bristled at his little jibes, Naruto's muscles tensing in irritation, blue eyes snapping with anger had set Sasuke's blood thrumming. Usually, people were too busy trying to please Sasuke to ever even consider coming right back in his face with an equally insulting remark. In fact, he couldn't remember it ever happening before. Naruto had shown him absolutely no deference, even after finding out who he was. He hadn't appeared to care at all if Sasuke liked him or not.

Yes, there was no doubt that Naruto pissed Sasuke off.

But he would be lying if he said it didn't also turn him on.

There was something about the way that he never knew what Naruto was going to do or say. He was unpredictable... and didn't quite seem to fit into any of the boring molds that everyone else seemed to come from.

Sasuke found 99.9999% of the people on the planet completely annoying. The women (and men) who swooned over his looks bored him to tears in minutes, generally never able to discuss anything other than how his body looked in his clothing (or out of it), or his hair, or his eyes. Having grown up with people constantly telling him how attractive he looked, it was no longer interesting to hear about it.

Not to mention the implication (though usually unintentional) that his looks were the most interesting part about him. _Why_ people seemed to think that being told they liked him because he was 'so good looking' was supposed to be a compliment, Sasuke would never understand. Any idiot could be handsome. Sasuke had graduated top of his class, was considered a genius at business development, and had travelled to more countries than most people could name on a map.

He had zero interest in people who only wanted to talk about how nice his fucking hair looked. They can go date a barber. Not Sasuke.

The people who usually pursued him in 'society events' were often more drawn to his money than his looks. This group was slightly better skilled at trying to hide their motivation, but Sasuke found that typically within the first five minutes of conversation they would compliment him on his watch, the brand of his shoes, ask what car he had driven that evening, or enquire about the size of his... house.

By the age of six he had developed a strategy to dealing with both types. He would be as coldly rude as possible, driving away all but the most aggressive of his pursuers. At which point he would go from coldly rude to aggressively threatening until they left him alone. In the very worst of cases, he would call in Itachi, which generally resulted in the offending party disappearing from the face of the earth.

Sometimes it was good to have the devil as an older brother.

Sasuke's approach worked well. It had the added benefit of warning off any of the thin-skinned, overly romantic individuals who would require high doses of praise and loving words, neither of which Sasuke was likely to provide frequently, if ever. He had told his mother he loved her. Twice. That should be more than sufficient for his quota in this lifetime. It was surely more than his father had managed.

Naruto, while still infuriating, didn't really fit into any of those categories. He had seemed relatively unimpressed with Sasuke's looks, though he had clearly noted them. And even after finding out who Sasuke was, Naruto had seemed underwhelmed at best with Sasuke. It made Sasuke want to poke at Naruto, to make him respond to him, to prove that Naruto really was just like everyone else, but just with slightly better packaging.

Sasuke considered himself fortunate that Itachi had been distracted by the drama of their head of PR starting a bar fight and had missed the brief exchange between himself and Naruto as the blond had left the club. Itachi was constantly trying to interfere in Sasuke's sex life. Or any other facet of his life, for that matter. Nothing would please Itachi more than to see his little brother in some sort of relationship.

Which Sasuke found rather hypocritical, given that he didn't exactly see a ring on Itachi's finger, either. But Itachi had always had more fun messing around in Sasuke's life than focusing on his own. Dating would be no exception.

And Sasuke did _not_ want to date the blond. Sure, the scene at the club had definitely made Sasuke think about just how Naruto would be in bed. And he may or may not have had a few very vivid dreams that involved pinning Naruto to the wall of the club or over the desk in his office.

But Sasuke wouldn't go so far as to say he _liked_ Naruto.

He _would_ admit that he had potentially finally taken his mother's advice and found a hobby... at least for however long it continued to be entertaining: winding up Uzumaki Naruto.

-xXx-

Naruto couldn't decide if he was trying to avoid Sasuke or trying to run into him.

If he _happened_ to buy an extra coffee at the expensive, tasty, French place that just _happened_ to be located in the same building where Sasuke's apartment was, that was purely coincidence. Even though he found himself constantly looking over his shoulder so he wouldn't be surprised by the asshole again.

And the fact that Naruto somehow always put on his tightest jeans when he did his grocery shopping at the upscale market where he had first met Sasuke was ALSO purely coincidental.

Naruto didn't have specific expectations for any encounters he may or may not have with the businessman. He knew the lust he was feeling was likely just him entering his much overdo rebound period. Naruto was careful about things like this, and he would never use someone emotionally like that. He wouldn't actually pursue Sasuke for a relationship or anything. He just wanted to bump into him and... feel that spark, that sharp twist of anger and lust that the man seemed to evoke in him. He wanted to know if what he had felt in the club had been just the residual lust he felt for Sasori temporarily confused and misplaced by the amount of alcohol he had consumed that night.

He needed to re-train his brain that it didn't have to be Sasori to make him feel things, that there were others out there who could get his blood going and stir his interest. Once he spent some time making sure he was totally over Sasori, he could think about whether he actually wanted a relationship. And it would definitely NOT be with some ice prince asshole who thought he was better than everyone else. Naruto was sure if he just spent a bit more time in Sasuke's presence he'd get over his strange fascination with him, and then be ready to actually find someone_ appropriate_ to date.

Given what he'd already learned of Sasuke's personality, he figured he didn't have to worry about accidentally "hurting the guy's feelings". Sasuke had an iceberg lodged so far up his ass that there was no way this would ever amount to more than casual (if aggressive and slightly hostile) flirting. Which was exactly what Naruto needed. He had been beginning to think he'd never be attracted to anyone after Sasori. Their relationship had been so intense it had burned all thoughts of anyone else from Naruto's mind, and when it had ended Naruto had just been... vacant.

He could admit that there was something about Sasuke's smug, perfect demeanor that instantly got Naruto's back up and made him want to tear into the man, both literally and figuratively. He wasn't sure if it was his own inferiority complex raising its ugly head, or just raw sexual tension.

Naruto was lost in thought as he pushed his cart aimlessly through the grocery store, not really paying attention to where he was. Today he had worn his other Daily Ramen T-shirt, which depicted a hangman with the man half drawn and the letters: F_CK _FF below it.

He heard a snort behind him and looked up, realizing that he had wandered into the feminine hygiene aisle and was currently standing in front of a stack of large boxes of tampons. He was about to quickly reverse his cart out of the aisle when a familiar baritone voice stopped him.

"That time of the month already for you?"

Naruto felt an instant reaction down his spine at the sound of that voice, and the familiar surge of anger, aggression, and - as he turned to lock his eyes on the black gaze waiting for him - lust.

"Nah, given that you seem to be on the rag every time I run into you, though, I thought I'd do you a favor and by the jumbo pack for you," Naruto said, gesturing casually toward the large stack of tampon boxes.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed as he stood there carrying a small shopping basket. Naruto glanced in the basket and saw some tasteless-looking whole-wheat crackers, tomatoes, and green tea.

Naruto's own cart contained beer, apples, and ramen. Hey, he had apples. He wasn't _completely _unhealthy.

"I would have thought that someone who was supposed to be a journalist would have better perceptiveness of something as obvious as gender. Though I suppose that the periodical that you write for would hardly qualify as news, making you not really much of a journalist."

Naruto's smile turned feral. "Well, you know, metro sexuality can reach a certain point where really you'd have to be a medical examiner to really tell. I mean... how long _do_ you spend primping in the mirror each morning?"

Sasuke took a step closer, invading Naruto's personal space. "Most people seem to have no difficulty at all in telling what I have between my legs, idiot."

Naruto felt his blood heat considerably, and a familiar stirring below the waist at Sasuke's proximity and aggression. Not really thinking about their public location or potential consequences, he stepped forward as well, bringing their bodies close enough that he could feel the heat from Sasuke's body and breathe the faint scent of his cologne.

"Well," Naruto said, trying to keep his brain focused enough on their words to respond. He licked his suddenly dry lips, seeing the way Sasuke's eyes were drawn down to his mouth. "I would guess that if you pay people enough, they'll tell you whatever you want to hear," Naruto said, his voice low and slightly rough rather than taunting. His hands twitched with the repressed urge to fist into the bastard's duck-styled hair, and crush the man's arrogant lips to his. Other thoughts of what he'd love to make Sasuke's mouth do to shut him up had him suddenly almost painfully hard.

Sasuke blamed it completely on the fact that too much blood had suddenly pooled south of his brain that he was only able to come up with, "I can promise you that I've never had to pay anyone to do or say anything when it comes to sex."

Sasuke suddenly realized he was more than ready to make good on statement right now. How long had it been? Definitely too long.

He was vaguely aware of the sound of running footsteps before he felt something crash into the back of his legs, sending him the half-step forward so that his body connected with Naruto's. The contact brought immediate awareness of each other's erections, and unintended friction between them.

"Give it back, Yana! Mr. Skippy is mine! _Moooooomm_!" the two children continued their race down the aisle, the boy who looked to be about seven holding a plush bunny up high while a girl, who looked about a year younger, pounded after him screaming.

Naruto was the first to take a step back, breaking the contact. He couldn't believe what he had actually been considering doing in the middle of a grocery store. _What the hell was wrong with him?_ Oh, yeah. Over a year with no sex and minimal masturbation. Clearly he needed to go home and fix that as soon as possible. At least the masturbation part. He looked at Sasuke, seeing the black eyes refocusing as well as they both snapped out of whatever sexual haze they had been trapped in.

Naruto tried to pull himself together enough to leave one last parting shot, before he went home and spent the next three hours jacking off in the shower to visions of what just happened. "Yeah, I'm sure that's what you tell everyone. But you know what they say about people who are all talk. I'm guessing you're just trying to compensate."

Sasuke felt his temper snap again, but of course he couldn't just shove Naruto into the nearest wall and... Sasuke blinked as his mind provided him with several mental images of exactly what he wanted to do with Naruto up against a wall.

But not in public. Especially not with children running around. He supposed it was good that they kept running into each other in crowded places, given the volatile combination of emotions that they both clearly evoked in each other.

Who knows what would happen if they were ever actually alone in a room together.

"Yeah, well, given that you get so little play that your friends had to take out an ad in the newspaper to try to help you out, I think I won't be taking any advice from you on how to get laid," Sasuke said, subtly adjusting his pants so he could walk without discomfort. Luckily the shopping basket he was holding would cover the majority of his problem.

He turned on his heel as Naruto opened his mouth to say something more, but was once again run down by small children carrying plushies. Naruto stumbled forward, barely catching himself before being flattened by the marauding children. He looked up to see Sasuke walking off with a satisfied smirk on his arrogant face.

Naruto hated letting the bastard have the last word.

A smile spread over his tan face. He didn't need to let Sasuke have the last word, actually. Naruto suddenly had an idea for what to write about in next week's column.

-xXx-

_to be continued..._

so... somehow I like the idea of Naruto having a really dirty mouth during sex in this fic. I don't know if it will play out that way when the time comes, but... there is a growing chance that this fic will contain a lot of dirty talk during sex. I'll give a proper warning if it happens that way. Won't be very far away at the rate this is escalating.

Hinata's column was inspired by Narutosgirl66, the dumbass neighbors for 420luver's wonderful neighbors (not her street name, of course), Lee's column was based on a friend of mine who is a sensei at a local dojo and does all these crazy ultramarathons and triathlons and he runs them barefoot and is completely insane.


	6. Chapter 6 - Showdown over Caviar

**Summary:**

Naruto runs an underground newspaper called 'The Daily Ramen', focused on poking fun of the fragile egos of the rich and famous. How does Sasuke respond when he moves to town and gets in Naruto's crosshairs? Not particularly well. But who says arguing can't be foreplay? Sasuke x Naruto (Yaoi boy x boy)

**Warning:** **Yaoi **A little boy x boy action. If you don't like and are on chapter 6 of this fic, then... I don't really know what to say to you.

**Author's note:** Kishimoto's name is no longer allowed to be uttered in my presence and chapter 700 does not exist in my universe. I consider it AU, not canon.

-xXx-

* * *

><p><strong>The Daily Ramen, November 7<strong>

OUR DUMB WORLD_ - Things that are going on in other places that you couldn't care less about. Weekly column by **Nara Shikamaru**_

Localized apocalypses are being reported all around the globe due to a catastrophically bad 'final chapter' of a popular Japanese manga. A woman dangling off the edge of a tall office building in New York City explains. "I just... I knew the pairing I shipped couldn't be mainstream. I knew it. But... what happened in that final chapter just... it violated all rules of storytelling. It was in direct contradiction to all of the 698 chapters that came before it. And... (she sobbed)... there were so many plot points left unexplained. Everyone aged so poorly and looked like gross versions of their parents. And... and... BOLT AND SALAD? No. Just no. My life is over due to poor naming choices," she said, releasing her grip on the ledge and landing with a melodramatic plop on a fluffy mattress she had laid out on the balcony below her before grabbing her briefcase and rushing off to work so as to not be late. But the upside to all the manga-associated angst is that global sales of both alcohol and gay porn have nearly doubled in the past 48-hours, giving the global economy a needed boost as it had been drifting once again towards recession.

* * *

><p>IN OTHER NEWS - <em>If you think you didn't care about Nara's stuff, you REALLY won't care about this. Weekly column by <strong>Uzumaki Naruto<strong>_

It has recently been disclosed that Uchiha Sasuke purchased a brand new McLaren MSO-P1. Aside from the fact that is strange for a grown man to want to purchase something that so closely resembles the Batmobile, rumors are arising around what he could possibly be... _compensating_ for. A local expert on male sexual behavior has described such vehicles as 'the little dick' cars, whereby men who obviously lack horsepower in other areas try to make up for it with their vehicles. It should be noted that I personally drive a Prius. So... you know... nothing to prove here.

* * *

><p>I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE -<em> Seriously, people. If you don't know what you're doing sexually, can you please just keep it in your own bedrooms? Weekly column by <strong>Hyuuga Hinata<strong>_

A reader of my column recently e-mailed me and asked whether performing sexual acts in front of animals was technically considered PDA. At first I laughed, assuming this was a joke. Then I opened the attachment. Oh, Dear Lord. While having sex in a zoo is not considered PDA due to the_ animals_ that are watching, it _is _considered PDA for the busload of elementary school children that are clearly visible peeking at you through the bushes from where you and your partner were 'getting in tune with you animal nature'. While I was impressed by the thought that had gone into the animal cosplay outfits you had chosen, I docked points for your choice of audience. Monkeys are fine. 7-year-olds not so much.

* * *

><p>DUMBASS OF THE DAY - <em>Because some people are just so dumb, they really do deserve an award for it. Weekly award by <strong>Inuzuka Kiba<strong>_

In a classic version of Romeo and Juliet, a man was in the process of divorcing his wife of twenty years and mother of their three children to marry a woman half his age (interestingly, the same age as his daughter). The man and his mistress were making out in the back seat of his Mercedes as he told her in detail how he had set up a secret bank account over the past two years of their affair to hide a significant portion of his wealth from his wife and her divorce attorney. Unfortunately for him, he had not taken his wife's number off his cell phone, and accidentally butt-dialed her just before the conversation had started. It turns out his wife was able to not only take excellent notes, but she recorded it as well, and now has excellent documentation not only of the length and nature of the affair, but a detailed record of his financial misconduct. You, sir, are our Dumbass of the Day

* * *

><p>BAD SHIT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU - <em>But at least now you know. Weekly horoscope by <strong>Aburame Shino<strong>_

After much meditation, I have a series of very specific recommendations for my loyal readers: First, to the rats - remember that smuggling heroin is a very delicate operation. Do not puncture the balloon before you swallow it. Ever. To the ox and tigers - I am sorry to say that your phone bills will be truly insane this month. You should put in for overtime now. To the rabbits - your hubris will be your downfall. Despite all the play you get, you are - in fact - not very good in bed. To my dragon and snake readers - try listening to your body this week. It might give you a clue as to what really happened at that party last month. I'd go get checked at the clinic, personally. To the rams and moneys - having sex with farm animals does not in fact make you an 'animal breeder'. Why? Because we have other words to describe you. To the roosters - stop talking about your cocks. Everyone already knows. To the Dog and boar readers - fluffing the blanket after you pass gas in bed does not fool your bed partner into thinking it wasn't you.

* * *

><p>SPORTS NEWS! - <em>Sports are a celebration of endless youth! Join me in reveling in them! Weekly column by <strong>Rock Lee!<strong>_

Professional sports teams everywhere are trying to improve the lives of their athletes! By lobbying pharmaceutical companies to increase the 'maximum safe dosage' of pain killers and anti-inflammatory medications! Just because an injury will deliver chronic, lifelong pain, doesn't mean it has to be season ending! The pharmaceutical companies responded by [sorry, the internet is full again! More next week!]

* * *

><p>-xXx-<p>

Naruto sipped his champagne at the fundraising event that he was attending. Normally, he wouldn't be caught dead at one of these black tie events, but it was the local chapter of the 'Youth at Risk' organization, and he was a staunch supporter of it, having been on the receiving end of some of their programs in his youth. They usually asked him to give the introductions for the keynote speakers, to inject a little humor into the otherwise stuffy affair and loosen people up so they'd donate more money.

Evidently there had been some last-minute adjustments to who was actually going to be speaking tonight, so Naruto had yet to be told who he would be introducing. But he knew pretty much everyone who was active with the charity in the community, so he was sure he could pull something out of his ass whenever the organizer finally let him know who it was.

Though since dinner was going to be starting in about thirty minutes, so he hoped that they would let him know pretty soon.

He hoped it was Neji. It was always fun to poke at that guy. Most people didn't know it, but they actually had become tentative friends through the organization. As long as the conversation steered clear of Hinata.

He looked up to see TenTen making her way through the crowd towards him.

_Finally,_ Naruto thought, feeling a bit of nerves, and hoping whoever they picked would at least give him something to work with.

"Naruto! I'm so sorry this is so late. We were going to have Sarutobi speak again this year, but he came down with pneumonia last week and we have been scrambling to find someone high profile enough to take his place. But it is _amazing_. You'll never believe who we got to come and give a speech on the importance of the organization's activities."

TenTen paused, and Naruto realized that - despite the fact that he literally now had only fifteen minutes to come up with something both funny and appropriate for this audience - she expected him to guess.

"The Prime Minister's mistress? Geez, Ten, just give me the guy's name so I can come up with some shit to say. I have to get up on stage in like ten minutes."

TenTen sighed, but was too excited to be put off by Naruto's nerves. "It's one of the Uchiha brothers! He was evidently very involved with the branch of our organization in the city where he used to live. When he heard we were looking to fill Sarutobi's spot, he agreed to do it as long as we didn't make a big deal out of it in the papers in advance!" TenTen said, obviously excited at the prospect of having an influential, wealthy, popular new benefactor for the organization.

Naruto's eyes went to the podium, dreading to see the answer to the question already forming on his lips. "Which Uchiha brother?"

And there he was, standing off to the side, glaring directly at Naruto from across the room. Naruto looked directly at him, and smirked, not about to appear in any way intimidated by the man's look. Sasuke's glare intensified.

"Uchiha Sasuke. The younger one. Why, do you two know each other?" TenTen asked, feeling slightly concerned as Naruto's usually innocuous face was now cast in an unholy grin.

"Yeah... I met him once or twice. Please excuse me, I need to go prepare an introduction," Naruto turned and walked over to the bar, quickly replacing his champagne with a shot of whiskey to help him get through the next hour. He turned, deciding he would not do anything to seem repentant or nervous about Sasuke's possible reaction to the column he had published that week. He wondered if Sasuke knew Naruto would be introducing him. He would bet his rented tux that he didn't. Naruto's smile widened.

Oh, he was going to enjoy this.

His eyes did a quick scan of the room, relieved to see Itachi was not present. As brave as Naruto was, there was something about Sasuke's older brother that made Naruto... cautious. He inwardly winced when he remembered the call he had received from Itachi they day the latest issue of the paper had come out.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_"I thought we agreed that you would clear articles about my family before they went live."_

"Itachi! Hello to you, too," Naruto said, wondering how in the hell Itachi had gotten his personal cell number when he hadn't even given it to his crew at the _Daily Ramen_ yet. When there was no response, Naruto continued. "Ok, so I am going to ignore the fact that you should not have been able to get this number and remind you that I had promised not to post anything about _you_. Your brother continues to make himself fair game."

"_Continues to? Have you met with Sasuke again?"_

"Hmmmmm," Naruto said non-committally, suddenly aware of the intense interest in Itachi's voice. "Anyway, I did check my facts with the local dealer. I know I got the model of the car right."

Itachi's soft chuckle came over the line, making the hair on the back of Naruto's neck stand up. "_I assume you are aware of the likely outcome of your... choice of subject matter._"

Naruto shrugged, though he knew the older man couldn't see. "I don't care if he gets ticked off about it. I made it clear what was fact and what was opinion."

"_Very well, Naruto-kun. I'm sure we'll be in touch. Sasuke happens to be out of the country on business for the next few days. You can save yourself some money on coffee."_

With that cryptic remark, Itachi had hung up. Naruto tried to pretend that Itachi's parting words did not imply that he was potentially aware of Naruto's increased number of visits to the coffee shop in Sasuke's building.

Evidently, Sasuke had returned from his business trip. And by the looks of it, he'd seen the article.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Uchiha," Naruto said with a smirk as he finally arrived next to the dark-haired man. He tried to not let his eyes slide over the way that Sasuke's obviously tailored tux fit his body perfectly. No one should be allowed to look that good with their clothes on. He immediately shut his brain down from trying to imagine what Sasuke looked like with his tux _off_.

"Uzumaki," Sasuke said, his eyes narrowed. "I almost didn't recognize you without an annoying T-shirt. I thought this event was supposed to have some sort of entrance fee to keep the riff-raff out."

"Actually, I'm a staple at these events. They always have me introduce the keynote speakers."

There was a slight pause as Sasuke realized what Naruto was informing him of.

"No," Sasuke said, his eyes already roving the crowd, likely seeking out TenTen to request a change.

"Chicken?" Naruto asked.

"What?"

"You heard me. This is supposed to be a charity event. Is your ego so enormous that you're afraid take a little poking for a good cause?"

Sasuke eyed him. "We'll talk about your article after dinner, Dobe."

Something about the predatory glint that entered Sasuke's eyes when he said that made Naruto's palms sweat a little bit. But it was too late for him to worry about the consequences of his column now. So he grinned instead.

"Whatever, bastard."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They sat next to each other in the two straight-backed chairs to the left of the stage as TenTen stood behind the podium, thanking everyone for coming and reminding them about the organization's mission and the need for their generosity this evening. Then she was smiling to Naruto, introducing him as 'the man who needs no introduction to this audience.'

Naruto shot Sasuke a sidelong glance, reveling in the way the man seemed to bristle under the implied threat of public humiliation.

But Naruto had done many of these events, and he knew where to draw the line. If for no other reason than TenTen would castrate him with her impressive weaponry collection if he blew their main fundraising event.

"Good evening. It's good to see some familiar faces here tonight," Naruto began. "As well as a few new ones."

"I know that many of you were expecting to see Old Man Sarutobi here tonight. Well... there he is," Naruto gestured to Sasuke. "If you want the name of his plastic surgeon, we will be raffling off the contact information starting at one million dollars later this evening." There was a murmur of chuckles through the audience. As expected, one of the young women in an expensive designer dress spoke up. "That's not Hiruzen Sarutobi. That's Uchiha Sasuke!"

Naruto grinned. "That's right! And for TWO million dollars we will be auctioning off his personal cell number as well as his daily schedule for stalking purposes for the next two weeks," Naruto said to more chuckles and more than a few wistful glances cast in Sasuke's direction. Sasuke simply sat, his face impassive. No sign of either amusement or annoyance coloring his expression. Though if Itachi had been in the room, he would have been able to tell instantly that Naruto was not going to get off lightly. "No, but seriously. I'm sure most of you have already met Konoha's two newest additions to society. Sasuke and his brother Itachi have already brought a lot of new jobs to the community, and evidently they are willing to bring a bit more. So consider yourselves lucky to have gotten in this year, because next year the price per plate is likely to double as all of the debutantes descend on our little event to try to catch their attention by any means possible. I propose auctioning off tickets to see a wet T-shirt contest between the two brothers, but that will have to be decided by the event organizers. I would have said we should auction a date with him, but I have it on good authority that he's not much of a conversationalist. So we'll stick with just trying to capitalize on his pretty face." There was good humored laughter, as most people assumed that the two young men must know each other and this was simply friendly joking.

"Since I know that you are all really just waiting for dinner to arrive, I'll cut this short and turn the floor over to Uchiha Sasuke." There was a polite round of applause as Sasuke walked up, passing Naruto on his way to the podium. Naruto was feeling rather proud of himself for refraining from saying anything that would make TenTen hunt him down, but the look that Sasuke shot him as he brushed by told Naruto that Sasuke might not yet have become acquainted with TenTen's little pastime.

"Hn," Sasuke said, addressing the crowd. "Thank you for the... interesting introduction, Mr. Uzumaki. I would offer to sell Uzumaki's number, but his paper already gave it away for free, so..." Everyone chuckled, as many of them followed Naruto's underground paper. "Evidently even the best efforts of Konoha's media syndicate weren't enough to help him find a date for this evening. Since this is a charity event, however, we can only hope he will finally have a bit of luck finding someone with sufficient sympathy to help him out for the rest of the evening. And hopefully distract him from his apparent fascination with my personal life." Another round of laughter.

Naruto bit back a growl. He could have _totally_ gone there as well, but he had held back and played nice. Sort of. _Bastard._

Sasuke spared him only a ghost of a smirk before getting down to business and talking about his personal view of the importance of helping disadvantaged youths become productive members of society. Naruto was sure that Sakura wrote all the bastard's talking points, but he was a little surprised at how eloquently Sasuke made his points. He saw rustles of movement as people began to reach for their checkbooks, and was sure that - whatever Naruto's own _personal _feelings about the guy, Sasuke actually was pretty good at this. He would have wondered why a rich guy like Sasuke even cared about Youth at Risk's mission, but wrote it off as most likely simply another part of their business strategy to spread the word about their organization. Naruto knew that 90% of people on the boards of charity organizations were simply there for the business contacts. He saw no evidence that Sasuke was any different.

Naruto shrugged internally. He supposed it didn't really matter why Sasuke was here, as long as it was working. The beaming expression on TenTen's face as she collected the donations told Naruto it clearly was. Soon there was applause, signaling the end of Sasuke's brief speech. The waiters were bringing out the first course of the meal for the evening's event. Naruto had promised TenTen he'd stay until drinks, but then he'd get out. He looked over and saw that Hinata had arrived and was seated with Neji on the far side of the room. She was eyeing Naruto assessingly, her curiousity clearly piqued by their little remarks on stage. Naruto was careful not to so much as glance at Sasuke as he made his way down from the podium. Hinata could smell potential romantic interest from a mile away. And the LAST thing he wanted was to appear in his own damn paper again less than a month.

The seating for the event had been assigned, and Sasuke ended up sitting almost directly across from him at the same table as TenTen and some of the other program sponsors. Naruto was acutely aware of the pair of coal black eyes fastened on him as Naruto fell into conversation with the young woman on his right. But by the time Naruto glanced back, Sasuke was already involved in a conversation with the elderly gentleman sitting next to him.

. . . . . . . . . .

Sasuke was annoyed at how many courses the stupid dinner appeared to be. Sure, the charity event was $250 a plate, so they couldn't exactly throw a Happy Meal on everyone's plate and send them home, but really, how many tiny, delicately arranged plates of food were they going to have to sit through?

Naruto wouldn't look at him. Sasuke was careful not to do more than let his gaze brush over the annoying blond occasionally, but it seemed like Naruto was engaging everyone at the table in meaningless conversation _except _Sasuke. Well... not actually meaningless. Sasuke had to admit he was a bit surprised to see Naruto at anything that didn't directly relate to his paper or his friends or a bar. But it was clear by the way everyone came up and spoke with Naruto that not only was he a regular at the fundraiser, but he was actively involved in helping with some of its programs. For a guy who seemed to do nothing but joke all the time, it had surprised Sasuke.

He listened surreptitiously to what Naruto was saying to the woman who had called Sasuke at the last minute when she had found out that he had been involved in the same charity before they had moved to Konoha. _TenTen_, he thought her name was. Naruto was raising his hands in a placating way as she informed him that she expected him to be on his best behavior that night. Sasuke couldn't help but hide a smirk. So that was why the blond was avoiding him. Evidently the journalist was at least partially housebroken.

That was fine if Naruto wanted to ignore him for now. Sasuke preferred to have his little conversation with Naruto more privately anyway. He looked at his watch. And estimated that there were at least three more courses between him and drinks at the end of dinner.

. . . . . . . . . .

After dinner, people rose from their tables to mingle over drinks that the two bars that were stationed at either end of the room, while waiters in black ties carried small trays of champagne to those choosing to remain seated. This was when all the business and networking got done. Sasuke sighed, already having marked the three people he knew he had to speak with before he could excuse himself for the evening. While he was here primarily for personal reasons, he would never miss an opportunity to multitask. As he made his way over to a man he recognized as being on the Banking Regulatory Commission, he noticed Naruto walking over to the same woman he had seen dancing with him at the club. _Hinata_, he recalled her name to be, who was standing next to an attractive male who was clearly related to her.

Naruto lifted Hinata's hand, making a show of kissing her inner wrist and waggling his eyebrows at her while the male next to her glowered. Hinata giggled, rolling her eyes, though a tiny blush did creep over her cheeks. If Sasuke hadn't seen Naruto at the club he might have still wondered if there was something going on between the two, but there was clearly no chemistry there, just teasing affection.

Without having to think about it, Sasuke turned away the advances of four woman who had tried to waylay him as he approached the man he needed to speak with. He'd deal with Naruto later.

After Sasuke had concluded business with the three people he had needed to, he saw Naruto grabbing his jacket, apparently about to leave.

Sasuke was a little surprised when a young brunette in an expensive-looking tux came up behind the blond and grabbed his ass.

"Konohamaru!" Sasuke could hear Naruto shout from halfway across the room. "Knock it off!"

The young man - _apparently named Konohamaru,_ Sasuke registered_ -_ grinned unrepentantly. "Hinata said you were finally going to start dating again. I told her I was TOTALLY going to hit that. So? Are you finally ready to give me a chance?"

"You are about a decade of sexual experience short of being able to top me, brat, and I don't do twinks," Naruto said ruffling the younger man's hair.

"Hey! You're the blond!" Konohamaru said, apparently not surprised at being shot down. Or simply used to it. Sasuke got the feeling that it was more of a joke between them than anything serious. Though he frowned a bit as the younger man's hand lingered near Naruto's ass.

"Yeah, but you're the flake. Isn't it past your bedtime?" Naruto asked provokingly.

"Asshole! I'm only four years younger than you."

"And you're never going to catch up. I gotta get out of here. Too much ass-kissing gives me hives. Say hello to your grandpa for me," Naruto said, slipping his jacket on.

"Ok," Konohamaru's face fell slightly at the mention of his grandfather, and Naruto put a hand on his shoulder. "Is he out of the hospital yet?"

Konohamaru nodded. "He came home today, but... he still isn't breathing great."

"I'll come by tomorrow and see him. Ok?"

Konohamaru brightened a bit, and nodded. Naruto turned and headed towards the exit. Sasuke followed, his own jacket in his hand as he followed the blond out into the chilly night air.

. . . .

"Uzumaki," Sasuke said, gratified to see Naruto jump slightly at the sound of a voice directly behind him.

It was after 10pm and the evening had grown cool. "Uchiha," Naruto turned, a frown on his face. "Don't you have more ass-licking to do in there? The night's still young."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "In case you didn't notice, I have no need to. Most people suck up to me, not the other way around."

Naruto shivered as a blast of cold November wind sliced through his thin jacket. He took a step back into a narrow alley to the side of the building to get out of the wind. Sasuke followed him. "Arrogant, much?" Naruto said rolling his eyes.

Sasuke shrugged. "Well, it certainly isn't my imagination that you appear to have some sort of fixation about me," Sasuke said cockily.

"What!" Naruto shouted, then lowered his voice as an elderly couple who was also leaving early walked past and glanced into the alley. Naruto took a few steps deeper into the alley to be out of the glow of the streetlight. "_You're_ the asshole who keeps showing up behind me everywhere I go. I'm always just minding my own business. If anyone's obsessed, it's definitely you."

"Psh," Sasuke said, following Naruto deeper into the shadows. "What would I possibly see in a loud-mouthed, second-rate writer like you?"

Naruto stopped walking, and turned to face Sasuke, his eyes looking almost black in the dim lighting. "Why don't you tell me? Why did you follow me out here, Sasuke?"

Sasuke shrugged. "I came to tell you to stop harassing me in your stupid paper."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Really? I was under the impression that you delegated all PR stuff like that to Sakura. Why not just have her call me?"

"I don't need someone else to take care of my personal annoyances," Sasuke said, taking a step closer, his eyes narrowing.

Naruto didn't step back. He vaguely realized that he no longer felt cold, despite the chill in the air that made their breath come out in white puffs. "Oh, so it's personal, between us?" He found himself taking a step forward, now firmly in Sasuke's space. There was only half a foot separating them.

"It's annoying. Not personal," Sasuke said, his eyes sliding down from Naruto's to where the breath that left his lips was visible.

Naruto knew vaguely that he was not really thinking things through right now. He never acted on physical attraction when there was no actual _liking_ or even basic friendship between him and the other person. But he found himself taking another half-step forward, not able to fight the pulll that drew them so that the edges of his jacket brushed against Sasuke's, their bodies now less than an inch apart.

"So that's what you are right now? Annoyed" Naruto asked, watching his own hand raise up and brush the pad of his thumb across Sasuke's lower lip before letting his hand brace against the bricks behind the pale man's head.

Sasuke looked at him for a frozen second. "Fuck it," he said both hands fisting in Naruto's hair, pulling their lips together in what was definitely NOT a gentle 'get-to-know-you' kiss. Sasuke's lips bruised into Naruto's, forcing them open as Naruto thrust his tongue into Sasuke's mouth, not bothering for permission. Naruto shifted his body forward, shoving Sasuke roughly up against the wall, skinning the back of his own knuckles against the rough bricks as his hands tangled in the dark locks of Sasuke's hair.

Their teeth clicked together as their mouths pressed closer, their tongues sliding wetly against each other, fucking each other's mouths ruthlessly.

Sasuke was beyond thinking at this point, but tried to remember hazily how far they were from his car and how quickly could he drag Naruto back to it when they were startled back to reality by a woman's laughter. Naruto stepped back, abruptly, his eyes glazed and body panting.

"Wha- _shit_," he said running a finger along his lips, wiping off the excess moisture, feeling them throb against his touch. His lips weren't the only sensitized part of his body that was throbbing with each rapid pulse of his heart.

He looked over to the entrance of the alley, relieved to see that the woman was someone he didn't know, and she was laughing at something the man next to her was saying as they waited for a taxi. They hadn't been seen.

"Uh," Naruto said, turning to Sasuke. "I... this was really not... I mean..."

"Hn," Sasuke said, wiping his own mouth with the back of his hand, not taking his hooded eyes from Naruto's. "At least I finally found a way to shut you up."

Sasuke levered himself away from the brick wall. Despite the chill, he took off his jacket, using it to conceal the after-effects of their kiss on his body as he turned and walked out of the alley, nodding to the group of people that were just exiting the building where the event had been held.

"Bastard," Naruto said, half laughing and half annoyed. Sasuke turned slightly, just enough that Naruto could see the small smirk on his lips as he walked to where the valet nodded at him and jumped to bring his car around.

Naruto stood in the dark alley for several minutes, waiting for his body to cool. He shook his head, wondering what on earth possessed him to do what he had just done.

When he was ready, he headed out of the alley to catch a taxi home.

"Naruto!" Hinata called out to him as she and Neji had just come out of building, also ready to call an end to the day.

"Uh, hey, Hinata," Naruto said, shifting slightly under her sudden scrutiny. She peered over his shoulder, clearly trying to see if there was anyone following him out of the darkened alley way, her PDA-senses tingling as she took in his disheveled appearance and bee-stung lips.

"Who were you there with?" Hinata asked, looking around at the people getting into taxis nearby. Naruto was grateful that he had waited long enough that Sasuke was nowhere in sight.

"Uh, nothing. I mean, no one. I was just getting out of the wind for a bit. Can I catch a ride with you back? The line for taxis is pretty long, and the wind is brutal."

Neji grunted as he handed his tag to the valet to fetch his car. Hinata leaned in and whispered in Naruto's ear. "You don't really think I'm not going to find out, do you?"

-xXx-

_to be continued_...

Thanks to kitsuneXx for the dumbass nomination (there have been several good ones recently, so more will be coming), and mangabae for the PDA... wow. Next chapter will happen at the gym. In the lockerroom, to be exact.


	7. Chapter 7 - Gym time

**Summary:**

Naruto runs an underground newspaper called 'The Daily Ramen', focused on poking fun of the fragile egos of the rich and famous. How does Sasuke respond when he moves to town and gets in Naruto's crosshairs? Not particularly well. But who says arguing can't be foreplay? Sasuke x Naruto (Yaoi boy x boy)

**Warning: **Yaoi Lust and a little self-loathing. Speedos and their associated benefits.

**Author's note:** Sorry this is late. I rewrote it like three times. This was a tricky chapter for me for some reason to get the tone right. Thanks to Rasengan22 for chatting with me about it and giving me constructive advice and keeping me from obsessively deleting and rewriting in an endless loop. Hoping that after this the writing gets easier for me. This was supposed to be my 'easy' story, so I'm not sure why this chapter was so hard for me to get a version I was happy with. BUT, here it is. Finally. :-)

-xXx-

* * *

><p><strong>The Daily Ramen, November 21<strong>

OUR DUMB WORLD - _Things that are going on in other places that you couldn't care less about. Weekly column b_y **Nara Shikamaru**

How did I ever miss this? My status as a savvy global reporter is in question. Playboy has been ranking US Universities, both by hottest bodies and 'Top 10 Party Schools'. Is there any wonder that the international brain drain, syphoning the brightest minds and most creative individuals, has been continuing despite the generally poor US economic performance? I have already penned a letter to our Minister of Education recommending that Japan hire a writer from Hustler to rank top Japanese schools. Junior high through college. Hey, we totally beat the US in the lower grades. Why not market it better? And who wouldn't want to send their 14-year-old girl to a school recommended by Playboy?

* * *

><p>IN OTHER NEWS - <em>If you think you didn't care about Nara's stuff, you REALLY won't care about this. Weekly column by<em> **Uzumaki Naruto**

A local five star hotel was rumored to have cut a deal with local retailers to embed tracking devices in sleeping guests phones to monitor shopping patterns and preferences to use in better targeting of marketing efforts. When asked, the hotel owner refused to comment except to say he knew what I bought at the adult entertainment store I shopped at just before this interview, and would I be interested in one of their bondage-themed rooms. Interestingly, the targeting portion of their approach seems quite effective.

* * *

><p>I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE - <em>Seriously, people. If you don't know what you're doing sexually, can you please just keep it in your own bedrooms? Weekly column by<em> **Hyuuga Hinata**

Who says that you're ever too old to enjoy the little playgrounds at the local McDonalds or Burger King? I was enjoying my lunch when a busload of college students arrived. It was just after the lunch rush so the place was mostly empty. While the rest of the group was placing their order, a young couple snuck away into the enclosed play area, behind the slide and into the pit of plastic balls. I have to say, they were very efficient, and had sense enough to keep most of their activity 'submerged' beneath the tiny colored plastic spheres. There were, of course, no children present at the time, so they didn't get docked for that. I give them an 8 for boldness, obvious mutual enjoyment, and creative use of play equipment. I believe is my highest rating so far. Now we know why the mothers always insist on wiping their kiddies' hands after playing on the playground.

* * *

><p>DUMBASS OF THE DAY -<em> Because some people are just so dumb, they really do deserve an award for it. Weekly award by<em>** Inuzuka Kiba**

A man in China recently cut his dick off (you heard me correctly)... CUT HIS DICK OFF because he was unhappy about the state of his sex life. Not surprisingly, he regretted this decision almost immediately and bicycled (yes, he BIKED WITH HIS DICK CUT OFF) to the hospital. Only to realize he'd left his dick at home (that's what she said?). Because… it's pretty hard to think straight with your DICK CUT OFF. Ok. Do I even need to say it? He is definitely the dumbass of the day. Oh, and I'm pretty sure that cutting off your dick does not, in fact, improve your chances with the ladies.

* * *

><p>BAD SHIT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU -<em> But at least now you know. Weekly horoscope by<em> **Aburame Shino**

After all the work I put in last week to divine the future for everyone on the planet, I was informed that I still needed to write a horoscope this week. I have looked into it and determined that there is no future. For anyone. Why? Because I have a hangover. And therefore the world is ending. All is darkness. The upside is that anything you do this week will potentially not have consequences, if the world is truly ending. How strongly do you believe? This is your test.

* * *

><p>SPORTS NEWS! - <em>Sports are a celebration of endless youth! Join me in reveling in them! Weekly column by<em> **Rock Lee!**

Nascar drivers brawl in bar fight with Formula 1 drivers after comment that "all they know how to do is turn left". This was followed by several other insults including comparison of Ferrari engineering vs Ford (which strangely reminded me of the arguments in the boys bathroom in middle school about 'whose was bigger'), and all-out brawl of youthful aggression and passion ensued! It was a fantastic display of the power of youth! Now I am off to drive my vehicle quite recklessly down the streets to show my enthusiasm for this sport! And I will be making both right and left turns! But to my extreme sadness, I will not be driving a Ferrari. (And special thanks to the internet for allowing me enough space to finish my column this week!)

* * *

><p>-xXx-<p>

Naruto pulled the blanket further over his head. It was Saturday, and he was skipping going to the gym. He'd gotten his credit card statement from the last month and seen the amount of money he'd spent on coffee over the past few weeks and realized he needed to dial it back a bit. The coffee shop next to his own building wasn't all that bad. Neither was his regular grocery store. And it was much cheaper than the high end one that he had been frequenting of late.

It had nothing to do with wanting to buy himself a little more time before he had another run-in with a certain businessman who seemed to be able to completely upend Naruto's plans for 'not getting involved' with anyone at the moment.

Naruto was tired. He had thrown himself back into work with a vengeance, trying to keep himself busy so he didn't do anything stupid with his personal life.

Like, oh... I don't know... shoving his tongue down the throat of a virtual stranger in an alley out back of a charity event when he knew he was nowhere near ready to have an actual relationship.

Naruto was aware of his faults. He was loud, rash, politically incorrect. He was a sucker for people with hard back-stories to the point where he could be considered naive sometimes. As he had been with Sasori.

He'd been called an idiot, a loud-mouth, and an asshole, all with some merit. But one thing Naruto wasn't was a user. He didn't go around using people for sexual gratification when he had no intention of pursuing even a friendship with them. Sure, he might have had a few drunken one-night-stands in college, but there, both parties had been looking for the same thing. It had been mutual, and the intentions of both parties had been communicated.

What had happened with Sasuke was something completely different. They had been casually flirting and provoking each other for weeks, and Naruto knew there was obviously mutual attraction between them. But in his mind, he'd thought that was all it was. They hadn't even had what could legitimately be called a conversation.

The problem was that Naruto just seemed to completely lose all ability to think when he was near Sasuke. He didn't understand what it was that drew him so forcefully. Even with Sasori, it hadn't been like that in the beginning. The attraction had been there, but it had been manageable. It had gradually grown over time. They had waded in to their relationship.

With Sasuke it was like.. diving off a fucking cliff. If he got too close to the man and it was like he just fell over the ledge and there was no way to stop the plunge. Naruto didn't understand the level of attraction he felt. All they had done was insult each other. Sure, Sasuke was hot, but… lots of people were hot. Nothing even remotely like this had ever happened to him before.

It was one thing to see a hot guy and fantasize about him a bit. That was harmless, and human. It was something else entirely to slam said hot guy up against a brick wall and go for it without any sort of conversation about what was happening. Naruto wasn't delusional enough to have realized that they had both been more than ready to head for the nearest bed it if the sound of laughter nearby hadn't brought them back to reality.

Neither of them had been drunk, so Naruto couldn't even use alcohol as an excuse. He had never thought himself shallow enough to like someone just for their looks. It had to be more than that. The more he had thought about it, he knew it was not exactly Sasuke's looks that attracted him, though a person would have to be blind to not appreciate them.

As much as it pissed him off to admit it, he was attracted to Sasuke's arrogance. He loved the complete confidence with which Sasuke carried himself. And the fact that he had the intelligence and wit to back it up. Naruto liked the ruthless intellect, and the fact that Sasuke clearly didn't give a fuck what people thought about him.

It bothered Naruto a bit that he was turned on by that. He had sworn after Sasori that he was going to date someone _nice_ next time. Not that Sasuke was the same as Sasori in any way. Naruto couldn't imagine Sasuke doing drugs or really anything illegal. He doubted Sasuke even lied much. The guy had too much of a 'fuck you' attitude to care enough what other people thought to lie. Which… was very attractive.

But while Naruto felt slightly better that he hadn't gone out and found himself a carbon copy of Sasori to be attracted to, he was still struggling with what he should do about it. In his mind, there were three main problems with the current situation.

The first was that - while Sasuke might not be just like Sasori - he also wasn't the kind of person that Naruto had spent the last year convincing himself he should look for if he ever dated again. Naruto _wanted_ to date someone kind, loving, and supportive. Unfortunately, he didn't appear to actually be attracted to those kinds of people. Naruto was annoyed the fact that he _liked_ the asshole side of Sasuke. Not just the anatomy (though, obviously, that was quite fine), but the personality. The idea of a syrupy sweet and doting Sasuke made Naruto gag a little bit. That wasn't what he was hoping for. No, he liked Sasuke just the way he was. A complete bastard.

A smoking hot, cold as ice, arrogant asshole. Naruto groaned as he realized he was actually getting hard thinking about it. Remembering how Sasuke had looked in the alley with his eyes heavy lidded with lust and his mouth glistening from their messy kiss.

Naruto layered the pillow on top of the blanket in the hopes that he could smother some sense into his brain. Or at least kill his erection.

The second issue was that Naruto wasn't really sure he was ready to date, even casually. He didn't want to date someone until he was sure he wasn't using them as just a replacement for Sasori while he got his shit together again. It had been a year, and he had been pretty sure he was over it until that scene in the club. Now he honestly didn't know. He had just started to get out from under the train-wreck ending of his relationship with Sasori. It still felt a little soon to start something new.

The final issue was that - the more he thought about it - he realized that Sasuke was probably out of his league. The guy was loaded and came from a well-connected family. Naruto didn't really care about that stuff, but most people did. Sasuke had the arrogance that probably meant he would be sensitive to that, though his "don't give a fuck" attitude might leave the door open a bit. But even without that, there was the whole looks thing. Naruto was attractive and knew it, but Sasuke and Itachi were… from a whole different species when it came to physical attractiveness. He wasn't really sure that anyone other than airbrushed super-models would be in the Uchihas' league looks-wise. And where Naruto's wit had always been his strength, it was clear that Sasuke was also brutally intelligent, so Naruto couldn't even claim to be necessarily ahead there, either.

But all of those were good reasons why Naruto SHOULD have just kept his head and not mindlessly groped Sasuke after the benefit. Since Naruto's brain had apparently not been operational that evening, he figured he could at least offer to buy the guy lunch or take him out to dinner the next time he saw him. He had no idea what Sasuke had made of their little back-alley tryst a week ago, but Naruto decided that - even if Sasuke threw it back in his face - he would at least make the offer.

Naruto had no idea if he was ready for more than a single, casual date, so he'd have to get a grip on his hormones and make that clear before anything went any further. He'd ask Sasuke for lunch and see where they ended up. Sasuke had seen Naruto in the club with Sasori, so he was pretty sure the guy already knew the score about his ex from Sakura.

Once they talked and he got to know Sasuke a bit better, things would likely make more sense. He wasn't a horny teenager anymore. He had some self-control.

It would be fine.

-xXx-

Sasuke was buried in work, looking through investment proposals and researching the likely risks and growth potentials for a series of start-ups in South America. In three days he had to leave on a two-week road trip to go visit them all in person and then make the final call on which ones they would take on.

He had been feeling increasingly short tempered over the past week and Itachi's constant probing wasn't helping. A shadow fell over his shoulder. Speak of the devil.

Sasuke looked up, his eyes immediately narrowing as he looked at the assessing face of his older brother. "What?" Sasuke said flatly..

Itachi sat down on the edge of Sasuke's desk, eyeing him. "You seem even more anal retentive than usual, little brother. Is your gym membership not providing you with sufficient release opportunities for your stress?"

Sasuke's eyes widened fractionally as he wondered just how much his brother knew about what was going on - and not going on - between him and Naruto. He had hoped that his brother had forgotten about the exchange when Naruto had first come to their office. Unfortunately, that didn't appear to be the case.

"Last week you had seemed rather pleased with yourself for a few days. Now you are back to the surly individual I know and love. Anything you want to talk about?" Itachi asked seemingly innocently. Always a bad sign.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, clearly indicating that his brother must be currently residing on the wrong planet if he really thought Sasuke was going to 'talk about things'.

Itachi stood fluidly. "Ah, well. It was enlightening as always to speak with you. I'm glad to know you are so in touch with your emotions."

Itachi walked out of Sasuke's office, closing the door behind him.

Sasuke stared at the screen of his laptop. He admitted he was irritated. And potentially being slightly less pleasant than usual to people who annoyed him.

It was the first time in a very long time that he had found someone who actually attracted him beyond just a fleeting physical interest. Sasuke wasn't ready to pick out matching bathrobes or anything, but he had definitely been interested in picking up where he and Naruto had left off in the alley last week. Sasuke looked forward to their verbal sparring as much as he did their physical exchanges. Both left him feeling… wired, in a way his usual jaded persona didn't generally allow.

But Naruto seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. He hadn't seen the blond in over a week.

Simply calling the writer was out of the question. Sure, he could get Naruto's number from Sakura, but she would immediately inform Itachi of the fact that Sasuke had asked.

And calling would signal a level of interest that Sasuke wasn't sure he felt. It would indicate an intention to date. Sasuke wasn't looking for a boyfriend. He had just taken over a high pressure job from his father and moved to a new city. He didn't have time right now for a complicated relationship that would involved dinner dates and anniversaries and meeting friends.

But Sasuke was definitely interested in exploring their mutual attraction further. And Naruto seemed to be as well. He was glad that so far they'd been able to keep it simple. Sasuke had had plenty of experience with casual-interests-turned-stalker in the past, and had no desire for a repeat. Right now he wasn't sure he felt anything about the blond beyond lust. And simple lust wasn't worth the hassle that dating while living in the same town as his brother would bring.

Given his family's obsession with keeping the younger members of the clan away from gold-diggers or other unsuitables, he had learned the hard way to keep any sort of relationship off their radar. The first time he had been seen out on a date by one of his uncles had proven the consequences of carelessness in spades. His uncle had immediately called his mother. She had then insisted on meeting the 'nice young man' after Sasuke's father and one of his other uncles had performed a thorough background check on the guy. When Sasuke had brought the slightly nervous man home for what he thought would be a casual dinner with his parents the following weekend, the guy had been subjected to a virtual anal probe of his background, intentions, and life aspirations. Sasuke had never been so furious or embarrassed in his life. Especially since he'd only been seeing the guy for about three weeks. The sex was great, but he was in no way serious about the guy. Needless to say, that relationship had ended abruptly.

So Sasuke kept his sex life extremely private. Now that he and Itachi were not only living in the same city but also working together in the same office, that was going to be more difficult. But Sasuke had no intention of a repeat of that fiasco. As far as he was concerned, the next time his parents were going meet someone he was fucking, it would be at his wedding. And given that gay marriage wasn't legal in Japan, that pretty much meant NEVER.

He didn't expect whatever this thing was with Naruto to last long, anyway. Attraction that burned hot like this tended to be short-lived, in his experience. He was sure that in a matter of weeks they would burn each other out and realize they had nothing in common.

But it would be a good couple of weeks.

-xXx-

Naruto walked into the locker room, still sweating and breathing hard from his workout. It was after 11pm, and he had just finished a gruelling free-weight session followed by a three mile run on the indoor track. He supposed he'd been trying to make up for all the lost time since he'd been skipping going to the gym recently, but now he was getting back into his old routine. And ignoring the 'innocent' questions that the gym owner, Maito Guy, had tossed his way about whether there was anything 'frustrating' Naruto. Naruto was going to have to have a little chat with Lee again about spreading his personal business to Lee's crazy uncle.

But he had made his decision. Tomorrow he was going to go down to Sasuke's office and offer to take him out to lunch. Sasuke might act like a jerk to him, but it was pretty clear that the businessman was interested. And Naruto was definitely interested back, even if it went against his better judgement. But maybe Sasuke would prove him wrong. That prospect was definitely worth the risk of being shot down over.

Naruto would explain that they needed to take it slow while he got his shit together. If Sasuke didn't want to deal with that, then it was fine. But at least Naruto would be honest and could then stop feeling guilty about everything.

He stripped and threw his sweaty clothes into his gym bag. He pulled out a bottle of body wash and grabbed a clean towel from the rack and headed for the showers. The shower room was divided into two sections. There were a series of shower stalls with changing benches and curtains for privacy for members who wished to bath fully. On the other side of the room were a row of shower heads out in the open along a wall for swimmers who wished to rinse off before or after swimming. This time of night there was usually no one here, so he didn't bother overly much with modesty but he went into one of the closed off stalls out of habit.

It was part of his indulgence in his late-night routine. The solitude… feeling like this was his personal space. It relaxed him. He wondered how Guy managed to keep the place open until midnight when so few people seemed to be here after 11pm, but Naruto certainly wasn't going to complain.

He stepped into the showers and turned the water on lukewarm, wanting to cool off first. He flinched a bit as the cool water hit his overheated skin. He turned slowly under the forceful stream and let it flow over his body and through his sweaty hair, envisioning all the dirt and sweat going down the drain as his body finally cooled.

After a few minutes, he turned the water temperature up a bit and squeezed some of his shower gel into his hands and started washing himself properly. He cursed when he realized he had forgotten his shampoo in his locker and was about to go get it when he heard the sound of a door to a locker being opened.

A bit annoyed that his ritual solitude was broken, Naruto resigned himself to having to wash his hair with shower gel instead of shampoo, not wanting to talk with anyone who might be there. He had always sort of wondered what the difference was, anyway, between shower gel and shampoo. Deep down he suspected that there was none, and that it was all just a marketing conspiracy to get people to buy more products.

He quickly scrubbed his hair and finished rinsing off. He heard one of the showers turn on from the open line of shower heads where people coming to swim typically rinsed off before going into the pool.

Naruto grabbed his towel, wrapping it around his waist and pushed back the curtain. And froze.

Standing in the open shower area underneath one of the central shower heads was Sasuke.

Naruto thought hazily that it really just wasn't fair that someone could look like that. If people thought Sasuke looked good in his clothes, they had no concept of how much better he looked out of them.

Sasuke had his eyes closed, his head tilted back as the warm water from the shower flowed over him. Naruto almost felt like he'd walked onto the set of some cliche porno, the guy's sex appeal was so blatant. Except the actors in pornos were never this hot.

Frantically trying to remind himself that he was supposed to have self-control and just ask Sasuke out for lunch, he found his eyes helplessly following the rivulets of water that slid over Sasuke's pale, chiseled chest, down his abs, and down further to -

_Oh, mother of god - this was why Speedos were invented._

Naruto was aware of a strangled noise that he assumed came from his own throat. He supposed he could always print a retraction to his comment about Sasuke needing to compensate. That was clearly… not an issue for this man.

Sasuke's eyes snapped open, a glare already forming before he recognized Naruto standing there in his towel and staring at him in obvious appreciation.

"Here I thought you couldn't possibly look any dumber than usual, but with your jaw hanging open like that, I might have to revisit that opinion," Sasuke said.

Naruto snapped his jaw shut, closing his eyes against the full-body blush he knew he was now displaying. How was he supposed to ask Sasuke out for lunch in a setting like this? He opened his eyes to see Sasuke smirking knowingly. With his eyes closed, Naruto had missed the way the dark eyes had hungrily traced over his naked torso and hovered at where the towel hung low around Naruto's hips.

"S-sorry. I just was finishing up my shower. Uh… so I was going to ask…" Naruto trailed off. No. There was no way in hell he could ask Sasuke out to lunch when the guy was standing under the water in nothing but his Speedo. The whole purpose was to try to find out what there was between them _other_ than sexual attraction. Asking Sasuke out on a date when he was standing mostly naked would be viewed as a thinly veiled invitation for sex. Which Naruto had just spent the past week telling himself he was not going to do.

Naruto forced himself to take a step back and look somewhere else. Anywhere at all. "Uh, have a good swim."

Ok, Naruto knew that was lame but really, what could anyone expect with most of his blood was flowing south at all possible speed. Naruto turned and walked jerkily back to the changing room, so wrapped up in his own internal battle of self-control that he didn't notice the way Sasuke's eyes scorched over his mostly naked skin and where the damp towel hugged his toned ass.

Naruto's hands were shaking when he finally reached his locker and he fumbled with the combination. _Do not go back and fuck him into the wall. Do not go back and fuck him into the wall. You will at least take him out to dinner before you try to get into his pants. What the hell is wrong with you?!_ Naruto lectured himself, his internal voice sounding almost like his mother's by the time he got to the end, which was enough to snap him out of his trance and enable him to get ahold of himself.

Until he saw a pale hand brace itself on the upper shelf of his locker. Naruto didn't want to turn around. He knew he didn't want to just have meaningless sex with a guy who was basically a stranger. But he also knew his limitations. Unless Sasuke had decided to put the terry-cloth robe on that he'd seen hanging on the hook near the shower, Naruto was screwed. He would have laughed at his pun if his lungs were working.

He pulled his jeans and T-shirt off the shelf, figuring at least they would occupy his hands before he turned around. Sasuke was just standing there, one arm braced against the locker, water dripping down his body.

"Running away?" he asked, his tone light but his eyes hot.

Naruto shrugged, willing his eyes to stay locked on Sasuke's and not take the tempting slide down the man's body. "Just going home. Some of us have to work in the morning."

"Ah, yes. Your construction job. With the horny foreman who doesn't have good taste in T-shirts," Sasuke's gaze dropped to Naruto's lips, and Naruto instinctively ran his tongue along his lower lip before his teeth scraped across it. Sasuke's eyes darkened at the movement.

"Well, you know… there's not as much money in journalism like there is in big business. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do to make rent."

"Including banging his boss?" Sasuke asked, his eyes sliding lower now along Naruto's jawline and down his throat to the collar bone.

Naruto could almost feel the heat of that gaze like a caress. He felt the towel around his waist shift and knew exactly what part of his body was slowly lifting and causing that motion of fabric.

"Ah, well…" Naruto said thickly, clearly struggling to focus on the conversation rather than being sucked into the rising sexual tension swirling between them. "You work in finance, so you'd know more about whoring your soul out for money than just about anyone, I suppose."

Sasuke's glance flicked down, then came back up to meet Naruto's eyes. "You sure you want to go home right now?" he asked, his voice husky. He had been the one to kiss Naruto last time. This time he was going to make sure Naruto made the first move.

The locker room was completely empty. Sasuke saw Naruto's gaze slowly rake down the front of his body to rest briefly at Sasuke's speedo where Sasuke's opinion on the matter was impressively clear.

Naruto closed his eyes and banged his head back against the locker, and it was all Sasuke could do to not grab him by the hair and drag Naruto against him.

"We can't… I want… let me take you out to lunch. I could pick you up from work tomorrow?" Naruto opened his eyes just in time to see a look of almost horror flash across Sasuke's face.

"That is not going to happen," Sasuke bit out. All Sasuke could think of was the fact that if Naruto even set foot in his office, everyone would find out about it and his family would descend on Naruto like a plague of locusts. There was no way he was going through that again, much less subjecting Naruto to it.

Naruto felt his stomach freeze up at Sasuke's words. He laid his hand on Sasuke's chest and shoved him backwards so he had space to pull on his National Sarcasm Society (like we need your support) T-shirt.

_Of course_, Naruto thought to himself. _Why was I expecting anything else?_

Naruto had his jeans on fast enough to make a fireman jealous. Luckily they were loose enough that he was able to jam himself in despite his previous level of arousal, though the Uchiha's words had definitely thrown a bucket of ice water on that little problem. Now Naruto was just straight-up pissed. Evidently he was good enough to fuck in an empty alley or a locker room, but god forbid anyone actually saw them together.

Had he really thought Sasuke was better than Sasori? Not likely. Simply a different flavor of dickhead. But at least now Naruto knew, and he could stop obsessing about it.

"Naruto, look -" Sasuke began, but Naruto just grabbed his bag and slammed his locker shut, barely missing Sasuke's fingers.

"Whatever. I appear to have had some sort of brain malfunction. I'm outta here."

"What I meant was -" Sasuke didn't bother finishing because the door to the locker room had already slammed shut behind the blond.

Sasuke sat down and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "_Fuck_."

-xXx-

_to be continued..._

Thanks to Avga for the lead on Hinata's story, and dumbass of the day nominated by KiaraQueenofChaos

**Updated note:** This is just a warning that I am trying to start finishing up Deception, so right now that story will take precedence and updates for this fic might take longer.


	8. Chapter 8 - A decision

**Summary:**

Naruto runs an underground newspaper called 'The Daily Ramen', focused on poking fun of the fragile egos of the rich and famous. How does Sasuke respond when he moves to town and gets in Naruto's crosshairs? Not particularly well. But who says arguing can't be foreplay? Sasuke x Naruto (Yaoi boy x boy)

**Author's note:** So… I have to say that the movie is killing me. I haven't even watched it, but every time someone sends me a message about some scene or thing that happened I get a bit more depressed (so don't TELL MEEEEEE!). This fic in particular has become harder for me to write, since it involves a slightly more intelligent version of Naruto that I had always thought could be _possible_ once he grew up a little. But… the movie… kind of proves that he went the other way. And became sort of… thoughtless and maybe even a bit shallow as well. So… I am writing this more slowly right now. I will finish it but… I need to sort of let the shock of what the 'canon' versions of them as adults was fade a bit. Because to me it was just so disappointing how little both Sasuke and Naruto seemed to learn from their childhoods and everything else. *sighs* I might need to finish Deception first then come back and focus on this for real. Thanks to CapturedByNoodles for reading this over for me and helping me think things through. :-)

-xXx-

* * *

><p><strong>The Daily Ramen, December 7<strong>

OUR DUMB WORLD_ - Things that are going on in other places that you couldn't care less about. Weekly column by **Nara Shikamaru**_

A world-famous archaeologist from Oxford was ecstatic when a recent excavation in Egypt revealed what appeared to be an ancient BDSM sex chamber for a relatively unknown Pharaoh, knowing that it would considerably 'up his cred' at faculty parties and other campus events. "It would have been even better if it had been Cleopatra's, because everyone wanted to know what that woman was like in the sack. But even an unknown pharaoh is good. After all these years of finding useless crap like broken pottery, religious artifacts, and paintings of harvesting techniques or other boring shit, we _finally_ got to the good stuff." Attendance in the professor's freshman archaeology lecture had been dropping in recent years, but with the promise of a discussion of ancient sexual kinks, enrollment has almost doubled. It is rumored that his sex life has picked up as well, as his new pick-up line of 'I have a scale replica of an ancient Egyptian sex chamber in my bedroom' is more compelling than 'Would you like to read my latest dissertation on ancient agricultural techniques.'

* * *

><p>IN OTHER NEWS - <em>If you think you didn't care about Nara's stuff, you REALLY won't care about this. Weekly column by <strong>Uzumaki Naruto<strong>_

Plastic surgeon admits dejectedly that too few of his patients are actually hot enough to be porn stars. "Plastic surgeons had it easy in the 1970's when a 'natural' look was in with porn. Now the bar is much higher. People expect perfection," he said, the surgical mask still covering most of his face. He pulled out an orange book that showcased his best work and let me look through it. I have to say, his breast implant 'hall of fame' was quite impressive. I must be watching the wrong pornos.

* * *

><p>I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE -<em> Seriously, people. If you don't know what you're doing sexually, can you please just keep it in your own bedrooms? Weekly column by <strong>Hyuuga Hinata<strong>_

I have witnessed some public proposals that were actually quite romantic but there can come a point where it appears that the person is going more for getting the attention of random strangers than _actually_ proposing in a meaningful way to try to get someone to spend the rest of their lives with them. I was visiting one of my friends in the US last week. We were driving along the highway, and there was a huge billboard with the photo of a diamond engagement ring. The billboard said "Susan… will you marry me?" This was on the outskirts of a city of about six hundred thousand people. At first I assumed this was an advertisement of a jewelry store, but my friend assured me that it was in fact an actual marriage proposal. And I was curious as to what kind of person would actually propose marriage in this way. Was he trying to make the ring look bigger? (Mend and their 'size' issues…) Was he so afraid of rejection that he needed to do it remotely? Was he open for any Susan in particular, and just hoping one would bite? Just for the record, if a man proposed to me that way, I would rent out the adjacent billboard and have it say "Ask me in person you fucking coward."

* * *

><p>DUMBASS OF THE DAY - <em>Because some people are just so dumb, they really do deserve an award for it. Weekly award by <strong>Inuzuka Kiba<strong>_

In a recent rally, motorcyclists gathered to protest the law requiring them to wear helmets while riding. After signing a petition that it violated his right to personal choice, one of the protesters drove off, removing his helmet and pumping it into the air to show his support. Unfortunately, he wasn't paying attention and ran a red light. And crashed. And died of head injuries that would have been avoided if he had been wearing his helmet. Dumbass.

* * *

><p>BAD SHIT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU - <em>But at least now you know. Weekly horoscope by <strong>Aburame Shino<strong>_

To the Rams: God will appear before you in all his glory in a dream this week and tell you to spread the word. Do you always do the shit your crazy dreams tell you to do? Yeah, I thought not. Carry on. To the Dragons: You will find out the hard way that playing dead during a bear attack turns out in fact not to be a very good strategy. To the rabbits: Get a room, already. The rest of us are tired of hearing about it. Except for Hinata, of course.

* * *

><p>SPORTS NEWS! - <em>Sports are a celebration of endless youth! Join me in reveling in them! Weekly column by <strong>Rock Lee!<strong>_

After extensive and exhaustive research, I have finally concluded that the art of trash-talking - a most venerable and important element at the core of all sporting events - peaks in twelve-year-old boys. Children younger than that can have more vehemence, but are not yet articulate enough to really excel at this most crucial element of rivalry. The older teens and adults become too preoccupied with looking cool, and the quality of the trash talk degrades like the Star Wars episodes in the prequel trilogy. But a twelve-year-old's creativity and relative lack of 'poser' vanity appear to be the perfect balance for the ancient art of trash-talking to truly be at its best and purest form. Thus, I have taken on coaching one of the City League soccer teams, to better hone my trash-talking abilities to reflect the youthful Konoha spirit and regain my dominance in this area! Even the internet - in deference of the purity of this pursuit - allowed me space to speak my - [Cut off due to lack of space. See you next week.]

* * *

><p>-xXx-<p>

Naruto stared at his laptop. The blank screen of what would shortly need to become this week's column for the Daily Ramen stared back at him. Why was he disappointed? What had he expected? He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, then dragged his hands down over his face.

Whatever. It wasn't like he was even ready to have a relationship anyway. He had just wanted to… find out more about Sasuke. See if he was drawn to more than just the looks and the attitude. But he wasn't going to dwell on it. He hardly knew the guy, and what he did know about him should have warned him that it was going to play out like this. He could admit to himself that he had wanted it to be different, though. Because that would have meant that this insane attraction he felt was based on something more, something that maybe... Naruto shrugged. It was probably all just physical. Pheromones, or something stupid. That would make it easier to just forget about and stop obsessing.

Hinata was hovering. He'd seen her peek into his office at least three times in the past hour. She was worried that he was upset about something and was waiting for him to talk to her about it. Shikamaru had come in and fallen asleep on Naruto's couch in a show of support. Naruto grinned. He had friends. Good friends.

So who cares if some rich, arrogant fuck didn't think he was good enough to go to lunch with?

"Hinata. If you want to talk to me, you can just come in and say so," Naruto said, smiling slightly to take any potential sting out of his words.

Hinata blushed at being caught, but came into Naruto office, pushing Shikamaru's legs off the couch so she'd have a place to sit.

"What happened, Naruto? You're seem upset about something. Did… did Sasori come by your place last night?"

"No. This has nothing to do with him. I just… I think I'm realizing that I'm not really the best judge at picking people who would be good for me to date."

Shikamaru blew out a snort at that comment, making Naruto realize that he likely hadn't been as asleep as he had seemed. Evidently he had simply found the pacing form of hovering that Hinata had employed to be too tiring.

Shikamaru eyed Naruto from the couch. "So… you must have had a disastrous first date with whomever it was who caught your interest a week or so ago if you are already giving up."

Naruto gave a short, hard laugh. "Yeah, there wasn't any date. And there isn't going to be one, either. Evidently my bank account and pedigree aren't impressive enough for that."

Shikamaru narrowed his eyes. He knew that Naruto hated people who judged people on those things. It was odd that Naruto still seemed… disappointed somehow that he hadn't been deemed 'good enough' by someone like that. Usually, he just wrote them off. Literally. "His loss," Shikamaru said, and meant it.

Naruto shrugged. He wasn't so sure that it was really only Sasuke's loss, but it wasn't like he was going to have a say in the matter. Naruto was a realist. If someone was out of his league, then that was that.

Hinata looked at him, sympathy coloring her pale eyes. "Naruto… why don't you come to lunch with me today? I was meeting an old friend of mine, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind. Just get out of the office a bit."

Naruto hesitated. He had the feeling that Hinata was trying to set him up with someone, and the experience with Sasuke had left him feeling annoyed at the idea of dating anyone at this point. But he did want to get away from his desk for a bit. He clearly wasn't making any progress on his writing.

"Sure, why not." Naruto said, smiling. He decided he was done thinking about it.

Shikamaru sighed from the couch. He didn't need to speak for Naruto to hear the 'troublesome' in his tone.

-xXx-

Sasuke opened his calendar for the week. As usual, it seemed he would be in back-to-back meetings almost until he boarded the plane. Not that he knew what he'd do if he had free time, but at least it would have given him time to think about things. About Naruto.

After Naruto had slammed out of the locker room, Sasuke had considered for a split second the idea of actually chasing after him to explain what he meant. More than the fact that Uchiha's didn't chase, it had been the fact that he was dripping wet in only his speedo with a hard-on that had prevented him from going out of the locker room after him.

It hadn't been hard to guess that Naruto had taken his words to mean either that he would be embarrassed to be seen with Naruto, or was potentially even still in the closet. Neither of those things were true, and he didn't like the idea that Naruto now likely viewed him as either a snob or a coward. Sasuke didn't flaunt his sexuality, but it had nothing to do with his being gay. He preferred his private life exactly that. Private.

But that didn't mean he was interested in a relationship that revolved solely around sex, either. Not necessarily. The things that came out of Naruto's mouth interested Sasuke as much as the thoughts of what he could put _in_ the blond's mouth.

And they had been on track for at least some of those activities to take place, until it had all blown up in his face. It was fixable, though. Naruto didn't strike him as the kind of thin-skinned drama queen who would take something and blow it all out of proportion once it was explained. And if he was, then Sasuke would quickly lose interest, anyway. He had no patience for that kind of thing.

His phone chimed, notifying him that he had to be in the board room in five minutes. He picked up his neatly organized folio and headed toward the board room, checking his insanely packed schedule for the next two weeks and wondering if he was going to get any sleep at all except for on flights.

Sakura watched as Sasuke passed her in the hallway glaring down at his iPhone. He had been short-tempered since he arrived that morning, and she had noticed Itachi frowning after him in concern.

It was unusual for either of her bosses to display much emotion. With Itachi, the only one who seemed to be able to break through his cracks was Sasuke. With Sasuke… there was only one person other than Itachi that Sakura had seen able to evince actual emotions from the man. Since it didn't appear that Itachi was the source of Sasuke's irritation, Sakura wondered if maybe it was Naruto.

Sakura pulled out her phone. "Hinata? This is Sakura. How are things going at the office?... That's good. I guess I meant, have you seen Naruto today?... He is?... Oh, that's too bad. Do you know what happened_?_... Did he say who the 'asshole' was?" Sakura frowned, listening as Hinata described what she had seen when she'd left the charity event the week before. She handled all the official PR for their company, so she was pretty sure that Sasuke hadn't been at that event.

Sakura hung up, tapping her finger idly on the phone.

"And what news did you hear of our happy blond reporter?"

Sakura jumped, spinning around to see Itachi standing behind her. The man had ninja-like qualities that were simultaneously tremendously attractive and moderately terrifying.

"Well… " Sakura paused, not really sure what to say.

"I believe you were mentioning something about an 'asshole' that Naruto was somewhat upset with?"

Apparently, Itachi had heard pretty much the entire conversation. "Well, Hinata said there was someone she thought Naruto had started to like, but evidently when he asked the person out last night he was told he… erm… didn't have the right pedigree."

Itachi refrained from sighing. "Foolish little brother. Must I do everything for you?" he murmured.

Sakura bit her lip, not sure if she should continue. "I don't think it was Sasuke, actually. Hinata said that she was pretty sure Naruto was… um… _involved_ with someone he met at a charity event last week."

Itachi raised an eyebrow. "_Involved?_"

Sakura chewed her lip. This didn't seem to have anything to do with Sasuke, so she felt a bit hesitant to say anything to Itachi. Naruto would no doubt be mortified. Sasuke hadn't even been there, but even if he had, she simply couldn't imagine Sasuke making out in a dirty alley. He seemed far too frigid for that. Naruto must have found someone else. Which made this whole thing none of Itachi's business. However, she didn't know exactly how to tell him that.

"Hmmm," Sakura said, noncommittally.

Itachi's eyes narrowed. "Surely Hinata must have seen who he was 'involved' with. Did she mention who?"

"Erm… no. She didn't see them actually _together._ More… she just saw Naruto… _after_," Sakura trailed off awkwardly, praying that Itachi wouldn't ask her anymore questions.

Of course, the devil doesn't answer prayers. "And just where did this… _sighting_ take place?"

"It was at the Youth-at-Risk charity event," Sakura offered.

Itachi raised an eyebrow. "In the dining room? The coat room?"

"Why does it matter? It doesn't involve Sasuke. I had thought maybe…"

Itachi shrugged. "Let's just call it… curiosity. Where were they?"

Sakura blushed. "In the alley behind the building," she said quickly.

Itachi's eyes gleamed wickedly. Oh, this was so much better than he had thought. To think that his little Otouto was reduced to back alley gropings. Itachi felt a chuckle bubble up, but stifled it for fear of further traumatizing his employee. He knew that Sasuke had been invited to speak at that event, and the timing fit with his brother's sudden (though brief) good mood. Because Sasuke's involvement with the organization was personal, not related to their company, Sakura hadn't been involved. Itachi decided not to disclose this bit of information to anyone else for the moment. He would allow his little brother some privacy… from everyone except himself, naturally.

It had been far too long since he'd seen Sasuke let himself go with anything. He wasn't going to let him screw it up this quickly. "Sakura, when is the company holiday party?"

"It's two days after Sasuke gets back from his South America trip," Sakura said slowly, wondering if Itachi was going to try to get Sasuke to ask Naruto to the party. Somehow… she just couldn't imagine Sasuke doing that.

"Hn," Itachi said, looking at Sakura. "You should attend. And you should definitely bring a friend."

Sakura opened her mouth, then closed it again. Itachi raised an eyebrow. "You think it was Sasuke who said that to him, not the guy from the charity event?" Sakura asked, somewhat surprised given what she'd just told him. Itachi was no fool. She narrowed her eyes, assuming that he must know something she didn't. "If Sasuke really said that to Naruto, there's no way Naruto will come. And honestly...," she firmed her eyes, meeting Itachi's gaze head-on. "... honestly, I wouldn't want him to. Naruto is my friend. If Sasuke thinks he's too good for Naruto, I'm not going to drag him there just so Sasuke can treat him like shit."

A second eyebrow joined the first, elevated on Itachi's brow. Aside from Sasuke, Sakura was now only the second employee in the entire company to challenge him on something. "Sasuke has many flaws. Believing he is better than others just because of their family background isn't one of them. But if you prefer, I would be more than happy to invite Naruto myself," Itachi thought about it for a moment, and a smile appeared on his lips. "Actually, I think that is an excellent idea."

-xXx-

Sasuke boarded the flight to San Francisco, nodding in brief greeting to the first class flight attendants who had already become familiar with him through his frequent travel. He stowed his briefcase and roller-board carry-on in the overhead bin, and slotted his laptop into the magazine holder on the side of his seat. Normally, he would have prepared to sleep even though it wasn't a very long flight. Plane rides were one of the few times he would be assured of relatively undisturbed sleep from calls from work. The flight attendant raised her eyebrows slightly in surprise when - instead of sticking the 'do not disturb' sticker by his monitor - he accepted the menu and glass of champagne she offered him.

Sasuke's mind replayed the events in the locker room. He wasn't one for apologizing. But he also didn't like to be misread. He was going to spend the four hour flight deciding if it was worth actually seeking Naruto out to clarify what he'd meant. And as hot as the blond was, sex alone wouldn't be worth it. Sasuke had had too many experiences with people who ended up being high maintenance, boring, or otherwise annoying to stumble willingly into a situation like that. But he had one advantage in this case that he hadn't in the others. Naruto wrote for a living. And it would allow Sasuke to find out more about the blond before he made the call on whether it was worth the effort to fix what he'd messed up the other night.

Sasuke was a bit worried that Itachi already seemed to have noticed his interest in Naruto. But he knew that Itachi wouldn't 'introduce' Naruto to the family unless Itachi was absolutely sure that there was something going on between them. So they would have to be careful if they _did_ start seeing each other, until they were ready to involve his relatives. Which would be never.

Sasuke felt the tension lift as the plane took off. He finished his champagne and pulled out his laptop, connecting it to the in-flight internet service and opened the online edition of _The Daily Ramen_.

He clicked on the 'Shit you can buy' link, and found himself somewhat amused with the items there. The T-shirts immediately brought to mind a particularly vocal blond. The word snagged in Sasuke's flow of thoughts, and he wondered briefly if Naruto were vocal in other settings as well, but decided he'd put that to the test later. Potentially.

He searched through the archives, noting that the online version of the paper went back three years. He found himself enjoying Shikamaru's and Naruto's columns in particular. Shikamaru's, because Sasuke had traveled widely and knew many of the places and situations that the man was making fun of. And the intellectual, sarcastic nature of the commentary appealed to him. He remembered Sakura mentioning that Shikamaru and Naruto had been best friends and started the paper together in college. He found it interesting that Naruto would have a best friend like that. It hinted that there was more going on inside the blond's head than what he tended to let on.

Sasuke was drawn to Naruto's column as well, though for different reasons. The brazen humor that Naruto expressed through his choice of stories and language made Sasuke actually chuckle. As did the fact that the blond made fun of himself as much as he did of others. He supposed that was part of what had drawn him to Naruto in the first place. Naruto was able to give as good as he got in their verbal sparring. He didn't get all offended or need all kinds of reassurances the way a lot of people did. Sasuke found that appealing. Naruto reacted honestly, if viscerally, to what he encountered. It was unusual in the world of artifice that Sasuke generally traveled in. It was refreshing. And attractive.

One of the regular flight attendants looked up at him in surprise, as Sasuke chuckled at one of Naruto's recent pieces, never having seen the devastatingly handsome young businessman express anything other than formal politeness when she greeted him or mild annoyance at a delay in their schedule.

At first Sasuke was slightly annoyed at her reaction. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that… it _was_ rare for someone to be able to make him laugh. To make him react at all.

Maybe… maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be around someone who could make him smile.

Sasuke closed his laptop up as the co-pilot announced their descent into San Francisco, and Sasuke realized he had spent almost four hours reading the archives. But it was worth it. He now had a much better sense of Naruto. And he had made his decision. Now he just needed to get back home to act on it. He figured that - at this point - Naruto wouldn't reply to an email from him. Sasuke was scheduled to get back into town on Friday night, and he decided that he would stop by Naruto's office on Monday late afternoon and see if the blond would grab a coffee with him. They could play it out as he was coming to complain about the article Naruto had written, and then he could talk to the blond and see how he reacted and take things from there.

Feeling better now that he'd made his decision, he took his luggage from the overhead bin and made his way into the terminal. He had plenty of time to make his connecting flight to Rio. He walked through the busy air terminal. As usual, he planned on spending most of his two hour layover in the lounge, grabbing a shower and catching up on emails quickly before his longer flight.

Normally he didn't shop in the airport stores, finding little to his taste in the duty free or touristy wares. He was walking past a shop that sold various souvenirs, including T-shirts. Without really stopping to think about it, he slowed and made his way into the store, scanning through the shirts. Most were pretty lame, but there was one that caught his eye. In red, block letters across the top said 'Alcatraz Triathlon'. Below it were the words 'Dig, Run, Swim' with stickmen drawn wearing prison uniforms miming out each of the actions. Sasuke felt his lips twitch, imagining Naruto wearing that shirt to work out in.

He blinked when he realized what he was doing, and abruptly turned and headed to the first class lounge to finish up the work he needed to before he boarded his next flight.

-xXx-

Sasuke smoothed the expensive wool of his jacket. His flight back had been delayed, and he had missed his connection in San Francisco. He had only arrived back last night, and was still feeling barely human after the grueling travel schedule he'd had for the past two weeks. He had planned on skipping the office holiday party tonight, but Itachi had been insistent, telling Sasuke it 'humanized' him to their employees. Sasuke said it was perfectly 'human' to need some fucking sleep after two weeks of nonstop work and travel, but Itachi had merely handed him his tux and left him to dress.

The sound of the door opening behind him signaled the return of his beloved brother. Sasuke bit back a growl. He was not in the mood tonight for any of Itachi's mind games. But as usual, he wasn't going to get a say in it.

"Did you invite a guest to accompany you this evening, Sasuke," Itachi asked coolly, straightening the bowtie of his tuxedo.

Sasuke refrained from rolling his eyes. "_I_ don't even want to be here. Why would I make someone else come with me? Besides, we never bring dates. This is business."

"Actually, I happen to have invited someone to the party this evening."

Sasuke's head snapped up in shock despite himself. "Really? Who?"

Itachi walked over, smoothly brushing his fingers through Sasuke's hair as though adjusting the style.

"It is someone you know, actually. That writer friend of Sakura's. Uzumaki."

Itachi grinned on the inside at the shock and anger that seared through Sasuke's eyes. It was more emotion than he'd seen his little brother display in years.

He decided it was time to go downstairs and greet their guests.

-xXx-

Naruto stood on the steps of the imposing mansion where the holiday part was being held. He breathed out a short puff of air, wiping the palms of his hands on the dress pants he was wearing. He hated these kinds of events, but Itachi had called and…. Naruto hadn't been able to say no. Though looking at the heavy, carved door that marked the entry to Itachi's home, Naruto was revisiting that decision.

He knew it would be too much to hope that he wouldn't run into Sasuke given that the holiday party for Uchiha Financial Holdings was being held in his brother's home. Not to mention he was co-owner of the company, and it was a company party. Of _course_ the bastard would be here. Naruto drew a breath and told himself he would just ignore Sasuke as much as possible. After their last meeting, he didn't expect the guy to exactly seek him out, either. Sasuke had made it pretty clear that he had no desire to be seen 'publicly' with Naruto, and this event was even more 'public' than lunch would have been.

Deciding he was finally ready, Naruto reached up to knock on the door when it was answered by a man wearing a tuxedo, offering to take Naruto's coat and escorting him inside.

He felt more than a little out of place given that most of the people here either worked together or were here as the date of someone who did. His eyes searched the room, looking for Itachi. He didn't expect to know anyone else here, given that Sakura was still out with the flu. He had just caught a glimpse of slightly familiar red hair when he felt a hand settle on his shoulder. He jumped slightly, and turned around to find Itachi standing behind him.

"Naruto-kun. It's nice of you to join us this evening," Itachi said smoothly.

Naruto could only blink for a moment. Itachi was looking at him almost affectionately and the effect was… a little overwhelming. Fucking Uchiha genes. Naruto felt Itachi's hand slide down from his shoulder and rest at the small of his back, and barely suppressed a shiver.

"Um… Itachi?" Naruto couldn't deny that the man was undeniably the most attractive man he had ever seen. Every time the guy walked past a group of people at least one or two broke out in nosebleeds. But given what had already happened between Naruto and Sasuke, he knew anything with Itachi would be out-of-bounds. But he felt a little nervous about saying something too direct in case he was misreading Itachi. That would be… incredibly embarrassing.

Amusement flashed across Itachi's eyes, as though he knew exactly what Naruto was thinking. _Which... is ridiculous_, Naruto thought somewhat panicked. _He can't read my mind._

Naruto stepped forward slightly, just enough to break the distracting touch. He felt a far less friendly presence approaching and turned, not surprised to see Sasuke. What _did_ surprise him was the level of anger that he sensed coming from the man. Sasuke's gaze lingered to where Itachi's hand had been resting on Naruto's lower back, then snapped back to Naruto's face.

"Ah, Sasuke. So nice of you to join us. I thought you were going to stay glued to the back wall like you usually do at these things," Itachi said, calmly ignoring his little brother's clear show of temper.

"Naruto-kun. As host I must go and greet our other guests. I will find you later this evening. Since Sasuke is never much help with these events, I trust he will at least take care of you for the time being." With that somewhat unsettling statement, Itachi walked back into the throng of guests, smoothly charming his way through old and young, male and female alike. Naruto watched Itachi leave, forcing himself to keep from looking over at the younger Uchiha.

"So you're here with Itachi?" Sasuke asked abruptly, drawing Naruto's attention back to him, his voice sharp with annoyance.

Naruto felt his hackles rise. If Sasuke tried to say something about how Itachi shouldn't have invited him here, Naruto might actually punch him. Evidently he wasn't as 'over' Sasuke's snub as he'd thought. "Well I'm certainly not here to see _you. _Now if you excuse me I have to go see…. pretty much anyone else in this fucking house."

He wished Sakura were here. But she had come down with the flu two days ago and had stayed at home. Wanting to just get away from Sasuke, Naruto headed over to the bar. He figured he'd catch Itachi after the guests had stopped arriving.

He could feel Sasuke's eyes boring into his back as he crossed the room, but he forced himself to not turn back and look. A flash of red hair by the bar made all thoughts of Sasuke being an asshole fly out of his head.

He saw a man with bright green eyes and red hair, sipping what appeared to be whiskey. While other areas of the bar were quite crowded, there was an empty space of about three people wide that surrounded the redhead. The sight made Naruto's chest warm and a grin spread on his face.

"Gaara? Oh, my god, it's great to see you!" Naruto's voice tended to carry even when he wasn't excited, much less when he was taken by surprise by an unexpected appearance one of his best friends. At least half the room turned to look at his outburst.

The other half followed suit at the collective gasp as Naruto grabbed the stoic redhead and lifted him up in a bear-hug. "Shit! How have you been? It's been over a year!" Naruto grinned. "What are you doing here?"

Naruto vaguely noticed that people were staring at them, but he didn't really care.

Gaara raised an amused brow as Naruto finally released him, well aware that people were waiting to see if he would have the strange blond man evicted or eviscerated.

"I work here, sometimes," Gaara said, shrugging and sipped his drink that had miraculously not spilled with Naruto's effusive greeting. Gaara was in fact the youngest member of the Board of Executives, his family extremely influential in the financial sector. He was known for being cold, ruthless, and unapproachable. "Still not quite housebroken, I see," Gaara said, his voice low and gravelly.

Naruto laughed. "Nah. If my mom couldn't do it in eighteen years, I don't know why you'd expect anyone would be able to."

Gaara felt his lips twitch up into a small smile. That smile widened slightly as he heard at least three people choke on their drinks at the sight of it. Perhaps this party wouldn't be a total waste of his time after all.

Gaara glanced around Naruto for a moment, not seeing anyone whom his friend appeared to be here with. "Please tell me you are not the person they hired to take over writing our annual report."

"Have you _met_ the Uchihas? I am probably the absolute last person they would let near their financial reports to summarize them to investors." Naruto slung his arm around Gaara's shoulders, casting an amused glance at the people nearby literally gaping at them. Until Gaara cast what seemed to be a casual (if emotionless) glance in their direction and they all immediately paled and looked away.

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" Gaara asked, simply standing and allowing Naruto's arm to rest on his shoulders with no outward reaction at all.

"Of course. It's one of the main side benefits of being your friend. Everyone is so scared shitless of you. I never could figure out why. You're such a teddy bear." He ignored Gaara's warning growl. "Messing with them is pretty fun. Just think of all the gossip at the water cooler you'll get to hear on Monday morning."

"I have no interest in listening to their gossip. Why are you here?" Gaara looked at Naruto's semi-formal attire. "And what are you wearing? I think this is only the second time I've seen you without an obnoxious T-shirt on."

Naruto smirked, "Oh I'm wearing one. It's just hiding under this boring shirt. Hinata designed a whole new set of them. You want to see? I was planning on sending you one for Christmas."

Gaara simply raised an eyebrow. "I don't celebrate Christmas. Why would you send me a T-shirt?"

"To annoy you?"

"Like you need any help with that. Is there going to be any stopping you?"

"Nope! But you have to see it… Hinata's a total genius." Deciding that he would not take off his button-down shirt in the middle of a crowd of people who had already spent the better part of the last several minutes alternating between staring at them and trying to pretend NOT to stare at them, Naruto grabbed Gaara's arm and dragged him to the nearest doorway. Which turned out to be a large, comfortable library.

Naruto began unbuttoning his shirt, then winced as the finger he'd cut making breakfast that morning caught on a button. "Fuck!"

Gaara's face didn't alter in expression as he batted Naruto's hand away and took over unbuttoning the shirt.

The sound of a throat being cleared drew their attention to the doorway of the library. "Is this really the place for this, Sabaku?"

Naruto turned to see Sasuke leaning against the door jamb, eyeing them both narrowly with barely suppressed anger.

"What the fuck, asshole! I was just showing Gaara my…" Naruto began.

"Yes, I'm quite aware how much you like to play show and tell in public places. Evidently libraries are just as entertaining as locker rooms."

Gaara looked between the two angry men then turned to Naruto. "Naruto. Is Uchiha giving you problems?"

Sasuke's eyes locked with Naruto's. "Are you going to hide behind Sabaku's skirts?"

Naruto could feel Gaara bristle, though outwardly his friend appeared calm.

"Why would I? Even if Gaara and I were in here looking to test out every angle of the Kama Sutra, what possible problem would you have with it?"

Gaara gave Sasuke a hard look. "It doesn't sound like Naruto thinks there is much to talk about with you. So unless you had something _specific_ that you needed, Uchiha -"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes slightly at Gaara before turning his glare back full-force on Naruto. "What the fuck do you think you are doing? You seriously can't keep it in your pants for an hour while my brother had to step out to take a phone call?"

"Wait, _what?_" Naruto couldn't decide if he was more angry or confused at this point. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why the hell would Itachi care if I was in here researching new sex positions to try out with Gaara?"

Sasuke slammed the door closed behind him, not wanting their voices to carry. "Usually when you bring someone to a company function as your date, you don't expect them to sneak off into a secluded room and start letting other guests strip them."

Naruto looked at Sasuke for a moment, completely shocked. Then he started to laugh. "You thought…" he gasped for breath. "You thought I was here as Itachi's _date_? Shit, Sasuke just how much did you drink tonight?"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "If you're not here as his date, then why are you here?"

"Seriously? He didn't tell you?" Naruto started laughing again. And yes, Naruto was laughing _at _him not _with _him.

Sasuke walked over to him, barely stopping himself from grabbing the front of Naruto's shirt. "Answer the question, Dobe."

Gaara also took a step closer, cold aggression pumping off him. Naruto rolled his eyes at Sasuke. "He told me that there were several members of the board coming tonight, and I could come and try to talk to them about becoming sponsors of At-Risk."

Sasuke looked at him for a moment, making a mental note to eviscerate Itachi later. "So... you're not dating Itachi?"

"Um… _No_," Naruto looked at Sasuke as though he might be mildly retarded.

Sasuke ignored the look, wanting to confirm something else first. But his posture relaxed fractionally. He was much less worried about having Gaara as a potential rival than he had been if it were Itachi.

"And… what about you and Sabaku?"

"It's ok, Gaara," Naruto said, turning and laying a hand on Gaara's arm, feeling it tense beneath his fingers. "It looks like Sasuke and I have a few things to discuss after all."

Gaara hesitated, clearly not sure if he should leave the two men alone. He had been extremely protective of Naruto ever since… Naruto stopped that train of thought. He wasn't going to go there anymore. "If Sasuke actually has something to say, I don't have a problem listening. I just wasn't aware there was anything to discuss."

Gaara gave Sasuke a hard look, trying to read his intentions. "I'll be in town for the next three days," Gaara said at last, releasing some of the tension that had been building relentlessly since Sasuke had entered the room. He turned to Naruto, "Just let me know if you need anything." He turned and nodded curtly to Sasuke. "Uchiha."

Naruto looked over to the red-haired man. "Thanks, Gaara. I'll call you tomorrow and we can grab dinner."

Gaara simply nodded to Naruto, eyed Sasuke warningly one last time, then took his leave through the rear door of the library.

A slow smile spread over Naruto's face as he turned back to look at Sasuke. "You're jealous, aren't you? I was letting Gaara take my shirt off in your brother's library… and you were jealous. This had nothing to do with you defending Itachi's honor, or whatever other bullshit you said."

"Pfft. Don't flatter yourself, Uzumaki. I just didn't want my brother to be embarrassed in his own home."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Then - once you found out that I wasn't here as your brother's date - why didn't you just leave?"

Sasuke looked at him briefly. "You didn't answer my question about you and Gaara."

Naruto's smile widened. "And you didn't answer mine. And… you're still standing here. Weren't you just telling me a couple of weeks ago that you didn't even want me showing up at your office because you were too embarrassed to be seen with me? I'm sure a shitload of people you work with saw you walk in here."

Sasuke sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. He wasn't sure if it was the jet-lag, or the two drinks he'd had just before coming in here, but he suddenly felt his head spin slightly. It definitely didn't have anything to do with the proximity of the man standing directly in front of him with his shirt partially unbuttoned.

"No. That's not what I said, and it's not what I meant. And if you'd stuck around instead of running off like a fucking _girl_, then I could have explained it to you."

Naruto raised an eyebrow, deciding for the moment to ignore the 'little girl' comment. "I'm listening."

-xXx-

_to be continued_


End file.
